Yorkville School District 115 Board retains bus provider

YORKVILLE – A long-time bus provider will keep serving Yorkville schools following a school board vote this week.

The Yorkville School District 115 Board of Education voted, 7-0, to approve a new contract for student transportation services with Septran, Inc. during their regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 24 at the Yorkville High School library.

Mindy Bradford, executive director of finance and operations for the district, said the district received three bids from North American Central School Bus, LLC, Sunrise Southwest, LLC, and current providers Septran, Inc. She said district officials considered several criteria – including performance reliability, safety, cost, compliance with bid and references – in determining which provider to pursue.

"And at the end of that process, Septran came out ahead," Bradford said.

Bradford said the rates for Septran, Inc., who has been the transportation provider for the district for the last 15 years, came in relatively flat with where transportation rates are between the district and provider currently. She said the next lowest bidder, Sunrise Southwest, came in nearly 10% higher than that and North American Central School Bus's bid came in more than 40% higher.

"So that was really great news," Bradford said.

Bradford said the new contract with Septran includes nearly 40 rate amounts for different types of bus routes. She said it's nearly impossible to assign a specific total cost of the approved contract, since a lot of variables – including the number of out-of-district, field trip and extracurricular bus routes and logged driver hours – differ from year to year.

However, if the district were to just compare apples to apples on the new rates for fiscal year 2021 versus the current rates for the more than 150 relatively constant home-to-school bus routes as of last month alone, the district could save an estimated $51,000 each year for those specific routes with the new contract, Bradford said. That is, if the district doesn't change the number of those routes, she said.

"That's great news for the district and great news for taxpayers," Bradford said.

There were no additional comments made regarding the matter during the school board regular meeting on Monday.

Bradford also said in a Feb. 10 school district committee meeting one new item that was added to the new contract was WiFi service on five buses used for transporting students for longer distances for extracurricular and athletic events. She said during the Feb. 10 meeting bus video footage also would be provided electronically within 24 hours of request.

Bradford said during the Feb. 10 meeting Septran will be purchasing 83 new vehicles. She said the company also added additional fire suppression measures on new purchased buses over the course of the contract.

"That was kind of over and above what we had asked for in the contract," Bradford said.

According to district documents, the contract also will include ten buses being outfitted with stop arm cameras. That is consistent with what the company is currently providing the district in monitoring bus stop arm violations, district documents said.