Audit of School Bus Drivers Employed by Private Companies under Contract with the New York City Board of Education

Executive Summary

The New York City Board of Education’s (Board) Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT) is responsible for providing transportation services for eligible public school children. School buses provide transportation for eligible general education students in kindergarten through grade six and, as required, special education students. Other eligible students receive MetroCards for use on public transportation.

As of August 2001, OPT had contracts with 27 private school bus companies to provide transportation for approximately 170,000 school children in both general and special education. These companies employed 6,135 bus drivers.

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) qualifies individuals to operate school buses by awarding them “19-A status,” as required by the New York State Vehicle and Traffic Law.

OPT’s contract with its school bus carriers requires that each school bus driver be 19-A-certified. OPT also requires school bus carriers to ensure that all new drivers have, and that the Board receives, documentation of the following:

• A medical examination.
• Three letters of reference.
• A Commercial Drivers License.
• A completed DMV abstract of the driver’s vehicle operating record.
• A pre-employment drug test.
• A completed fingerprinting process referral form from the Board’s Office of Personnel Security.
• Specialized school-bus-driver training.
• A Final 19-A qualification letter.

In addition, the Board performs a criminal check in the 13 counties surrounding New York City for all potential school bus drivers before they are allowed to operate school buses.

Our office conducted an earlier audit of the qualifications of school bus drivers, Audit of Individuals Employed as School Bus Drivers by Private Companies Under Contract with the New York City Board of Education (#MG94-180A) issued December 28, 1994. That audit found that all the bus drivers in the audit sample were appropriately qualified to drive school buses. It recommended that the Board might wish to investigate whether any drivers operated school buses while their licenses were suspended, although the audit did not find any such instances. The audit also recommended that the Board consider joining Metropolitan Transit Authority in seeking legislation to prohibit judges from reinstating the commercial licenses of bus drivers convicted of serious criminal offenses.

This audit is not a follow-up of the prior report’s recommendations. This audit reviewed the Board’s current practices to determine whether OPT ensures that school bus drivers meet Board and 19-A driver qualifications.

The objective of this audit was to evaluate whether OPT ensures that school bus drivers meet Board and Article 19-A driver qualifications.

Our audit scope covered school bus drivers hired during Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 and still active as of August 29, 2001.

To understand OPT operations, we interviewed its Supervisor and Chief Investigator and reviewed OPT’s policies and procedures, and contracts with school bus carriers. In addition, we visited two carriers’ offices and interviewed staff members responsible for daily operations.

To determine whether the Board and school bus carriers maintain accurate and up-to-date driver files, we reviewed the files of the two carriers with the greatest number of drivers hired during Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001 who were still active as of August 29, 2001—Little Richie and Amboy bus companies. We randomly selected a sample of 10 percent of the total number of school bus drivers from these two carriers and reviewed the files maintained at OPT and at the carrier sites. We determined whether the driver files were complete and in accordance with Article 19-A regulations and Board requirements.

To determine whether school bus drivers were in compliance with 19-A regulations regarding the allowable maximum number of points or accidents both before and after they were hired, we expanded our original sample to comprise 10 percent of the total number of drivers from the next three largest carriers. We reviewed the initial DMV driver abstracts for the expanded sample of drivers to ascertain whether any driver had a record that would have disqualified the individual from being hired as a school bus driver. We also reviewed the current DMV driver abstracts for those drivers to determine whether any had exceeded the maximum number of points or accidents allowed by 19-A regulations after they were hired. For any driver who had exceeded 19-A regulations, we determined whether the driver had completed an accident prevention course to reduce the number of points or accidents.

The school bus drivers in our sample from the five largest carriers were in compliance with 19-A regulations regarding the allowable maximum number of points or accidents before and after they were hired.

The school bus drivers in our sample from the two largest carriers met most Board and 19-A driver qualifications. In addition, the related records maintained at OPT were well maintained, complete, and up-to-date.

However, some 19-A required Amboy Bus Company pre-employment and post-employment records were missing or not properly dated. In addition, some school bus driver training classes and medical exams were not conducted on a timely basis, as discussed below.

The driver files for 12 (46%) of the 26 Amboy Bus Company sampled drivers lacked 19-A required pre-employment and post employment records. These documents must be on file at carrier offices for review by DMV officials. Because of the poor documentation at the carrier’s office, we were unable to verify that Amboy’s drivers were meeting the 19-A pre-employment requirements.

Files for eight (16%) of the 51 sampled drivers (Little Richie and Amboy Bus Companies) indicated that those drivers had not received the required training in a timely manner.

Five (10%) of the sampled 51 drivers (Little Richie and Amboy Bus Companies) either did not take the required medical exam or did not take it on an annual basis, as required by the Board’s contract with the school bus carriers.

This audit makes these two recommendations to OPT officials:

• OPT should reinforce its contract provision that requires that school bus drivers meet 19-A requirements.
• OPT should reinforce its contract provision that carriers’ drivers receive the required training and medical examinations in a timely manner.

The matters covered in this report were discussed with officials fromthe Board during and at the conclusion of this audit. A preliminary draft report was sent to Board officials and discussed at an exit conference held on April 4, 2002. On April 11, 2002, we submitted a draft report to Board officials with a request for comments. We received a written response from Board officials on April 30, 2002. Board officials agreed with the audit’s recommendations, stating that:

“OPT agrees with the two recommendations. OPT will notify all bus companies of the importance of keeping bus drivers’ files current and of the importance of documenting that drivers receive the required training and medical examinations.”