Comptroller Brad Lander Calls for Major School Bus System Overhaul

New York, NY — In a new audit and accompanying policy report, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander exposed the dire state of citywide school bus services and urged City Hall to address a failing system plagued by chronic lateness, missed routes, and a lack of accountability that underserves children experiencing homelessness, and disproportionately impacts students with disabilities. 

New York City Public Schools, the largest school system in the United States, transports over 145,000 public, charter, and private school students at an annual cost of nearly $2 billion. In an audit of the Department of Education’s (DOE) Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT), the Comptroller’s Office uncovered abysmal vendor performance and glaring oversight failures. In the 2023-24 school year alone, OPT received over 150,000 complaints—including more than 14,000 for no-show pickups—yet OPT lacks effective systems to investigate the root causes of these failures or hold the bus companies accountable. The audit further revealed that the DOE failed to collect $42.6 million in penalties for basic GPS violations in the 2024-25 school year and continues to rely on a routing system built in 1994 with software unsupported since 2015. 

“For decades, our City’s school bus system has failed our students and families,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “Parents and guardians miss work, students miss class and breakfast, and kids with disabilities are stranded when our school bus system lacks the accountability and organization we need to fix systemic issues. With the shortened three-year contract extensions, City Hall has a unique opportunity to fix our schools’ dysfunctional bus system.”  

OPT’s service failures have been exacerbated by 46-year-old contracts. In November 2025, the Panel for Educational Policy broke a decades-long cycle by approving shorter, three-year contract extensions set to expire on June 30, 2028, which can empower the City to finally address these long-standing service issues.  

The Office’s audit found: 

• Over 150,000 service complaints received in the 2023-24 school year. 

• $42.6 million in uncollected penalties for GPS tracking log-in violations in 2024-25. 

• No evidence of systematic analysis of complaints to enforce contracts or improve service. 

• 99% of “problem runs” are for students with disabilities. 

• Required pre-school year “dry runs” are often not performed. Prior to the start of the 2023-24 school year, 19 bus vendors failed to comply with dry-run requirements. 

• DOE awarded Via Transportation contracts totaling $51.7 million to develop transportation technology — yet the vendor is up to five years late in implementing new routing and student badging technology. 

To support the City’s transition to a modern, equitable school transportation system by 2028, the policy report outlines three paths forward — competitive reprocurement, municipalization, and non-profit management — ensuring that input from parents, educators, advocates, and students is considered in the decision-making process. Comptroller Lander also recommends City Hall appoint a School Bus Czar within the first month of 2026, who would be tasked with stabilizing daily operations, conducting a comprehensive assessment of family needs and system performance, and aligning the legal, fiscal, labor, and legislative strategy for reform. 

The Comptroller’s policy report charts three potential solutions to address the City’s school bus crisis: 

Scenario 1: Competitive Procurement
Rebidding all the City’s school bus contracts would require State legislation to preserve long-standing labor protections (EPPs) while allowing DOE to competitively procure new contracts. If two proposed bills (S1018/A8440) pass in 2026, DOE could begin an 18-month reprocurement process, but this approach carries risks—including legislative uncertainty, ongoing fragmentation across 48 vendors, and challenges in fixing OPT’s core routing and oversight failures.  

Scenario 2: Municipalization
Creating a municipally-run school transportation agency—modeled on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)—would consolidate all bus operations under City control, improve routing, technology, and working conditions, and treat drivers and attendants as City employees. Benefits include unified oversight and better service quality, but challenges include major upfront costs (fleet acquisition and pension obligations), operational risks typical of large public agencies, and concerns about efficiency and innovation.  

Scenario 3: Non-Profit Management
Expanding the existing nonprofit NYCSBUS (New York City School Bus Umbrella Services, Inc.) into a citywide operator (akin to the City’s library system) would remove the profit motive, achieve industry consolidation, and enable a governance structure focused on service quality and accountability. DOE could reprocure NYCSBUS’s contract after 2026 to absorb routes, routing, customer service, and GPS functions. Key hurdles include absorbing substantial pension and fleet purchase costs and restructuring governance to ensure independence and effectiveness. 

“I support the recommendations in the Comptroller’s audit of the DOE OPT and the effort to strengthen oversight of our city’s vast school bus system,” said New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “With New York City Public Schools being the largest school system in the country and transporting 145,000 students daily, it is crucial that students have safe, timely, and reliable transportation. The Comptroller’s recent audit report, Get off the Struggle Bus, presents three feasible ways that the incoming mayoral administration could improve school bus transportation.” 

“For parents like me, this report is no surprise. We see our school bus system fail our children all year, and we see our government fail to hold bad actors accountable time and time again. But accountability alone is not the path to real change for our students,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “We need comprehensive, systemwide reform. The Governor and State legislature must pass and sign into law S.1018/A.8440 to protect school bus workers’ wages and benefits, and our City must launch a competitive RFP for our bus contracts that prioritizes transparency, accountability, and service that is safe, reliable, and attentive to the needs of our youngest and most vulnerable New Yorkers. I thank Comptroller Lander for this report and his advocacy. We cannot turn a blind eye to this broken system any longer.” 

“Year after year, we hear from hundreds of families who are struggling with school bus service that fails to meet the needs of New York City students,” said Maria Odom, Executive Director, Advocates for Children of New York. “Inconsistent, unreliable transportation not only disrupts children’s education—it also takes a financial and emotional toll on families, making it even more challenging to raise children in this city. We thank Comptroller Lander for bringing much-needed attention to these ongoing failures. We urge the new Administration to take immediate action to address longstanding issues, overhaul the 46-year-old school bus contracts, and ensure that a modern, dependable school bus system that works for students and families is in place before the next contract extension expires.” 

“Pupil transportation is too important to go unevaluated. Comptroller Lander’s team has confirmed, with data, what frustrated school bus families and workers have said for years: that this service must be done better, with more forethought and less waste,” said Sara Catalinotto, Co-Founder of Parents to Improve School Transportation (PIST NYC). “What other school system outsources busing to 48 private companies, considers two hours an acceptable route length, and treats K-12 as a single age group? Intentions aside, the current approach objectively sets students up for educational harm. We agree that NYC needs a drastically different approach going forward.” 

“This audit makes one thing abundantly clear: New York City’s yellow school bus system is failing our students, and has been for decades. It exposes a system that has long crumbled under inefficiency, neglect, and a lack of care for the very students who depend on it most, especially students with disabilities, those in foster care, and students in temporary housing,” said Nyah Berg executive director of New York Appleseed. “For years, advocates and parents have sounded the alarm while families endured extreme delays, hours-long commutes, and broken promises. This year, for the first time in a long time, advocates, organizations, elected officials, parents, students, and caregivers came together and created a 2¼-year window for long-overdue reform. The time to act was yesterday, but with this audit, a new incoming administration, and a rare window of opportunity ahead, we must finally rebuild New York City’s yellow bus system, making it reliable, on time, and modernized for every student, every day.”  

“Students with disabilities and others face far too many barriers to equal access to public education, and in NYC school bus problems have been a frustrating experience for all. We’re excited for efforts, like the Comptroller’s audit, that take listening to people with disabilities, their families, and supporters seriously,” said Evan Yankey, Advocacy Director, Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled. 

“The Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY) supports the need for timely busing services for students with disabilities for both academic programming and attendance at afterschool programming. Approximately 43% of students who take school buses in NYC have at least one disability. Bus delays mean that these students are missing valuable class time, often including their mandated services, and are also facing possible disruptions in their medication schedules and access to school-provided food.  Because buses do not operate after 4pm, students with disabilities are often excluded from afterschool programs, extracurricular activities, and the recreational component of Summer Rising. It is critical that these issues are addressed, so that students with disabilities can have access to the equitable education they are entitled to receive,” said Sharon McLennon Wier, Ph.D., MSEd., CRC, LMHC, Executive Director for CIDNY and Molly Senack, Education and Employment Community Organizer for CIDNY. 

“As a D75 student who has lost more school time hours due to bad bussing practices than I can count, I am grateful, after many years of advocacy, that our NYC Comptroller has released this audit of pupil transportation services that confirms the need for much needed reform,” said Lucas Healy, District 75 Youth Activist and Student. “It validates the loss students like me have experienced for many years and I hope it leads to more accountability and better outcomes for our families.” 

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