Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Exactly how much does it save to go from one to two miles?

Of course this particular cut is not effecting ANYONE!

That's a Good Question

That's such a good question that we put it to the state auditor, along with a lot of other questions about how best to reduce our transportation costs.

The state auditor would love to have answered these questions, but needed some data from our transportation contractor Laidlaw to do so. Guess what? Laidlaw turned them down flat. They actually said to the state auditor, you pay us $50,000 and we'll think about helping you out. This is the same contractor that runs most of our bus routes with 20 kids to increase the number of routes and, thus, their compensation. Would any one like to guess why they decided to play hard ball?

You may remember that when these numbskull's contract came up for renewal several years ago, Gail and I fought tooth and claw against it. They were on the brink of bankruptcy and were telling their investors, don't worry, we'll increase the number of routes we run for our school district customers and dig our way out.

Outsourcing our busing makes absolutely no sense at all. No vendor will have significantly lower costs than us. In fact, the PLSD has continued to buy all the diesel fuel that Laidlaw uses because we can get it cheaper. We don't pay sales tax on the buses we purchase and, in addition, get state assistance for the purchase price. Laidlaw doesn't. Beyond that, they have to pay income tax and make a profit (a big one, if they are ever going to dig their way out of bankruptcy). We don't.

If you want to help the PLSD save money on transportation (we spend better than $4 million per year on Laidlaw), write your favorite school board member and tell them that we want Laidlaw out now.