Q&A
Discussion on school bus contract renewal and extension
1:15:46
·
90 sec
Council Member Lincoln Restler opens the discussion by commending the chairs for holding the hearing and acknowledging the complexity of school bus transportation issues. He expresses concerns about historical corruption in school bus contracting and inquires about the Department of Education's plans for contract renewals.
- Restler highlights the importance of rooting out corruption in contracting, especially given current administration issues.
- Glenn Risbrook from NYC Public Schools confirms that they intend to have a short extension of existing contracts.
- The exchange sets the stage for a deeper discussion on school bus services and contracting practices.
Lincoln Restler
1:15:46
Thank you so much.
1:15:47
I really wanna commend chairs, Joseph, and Juan, for holding this hearing today.
1:15:52
Such an important topic, greatly appreciative of your leadership and oversight on this issue, and I wanna thank the team that's here with us, especially from DOE, for, you know, their hard work is this tough stuff.
1:16:05
It's complicated.
1:16:07
There's no winning.
1:16:09
It's it's hard and appreciate the efforts.
1:16:13
You know, if you were to Google school bus contracts and corruption, it's like every 3 to 5 years, there's a different range of probes, feds finding this, you know, district attorneys looking into that, this office being raided going back since I was born.
1:16:30
Right?
1:16:31
Like, I would argue that this is one of the areas in city government where we have the most endemic corruption.
1:16:37
And especially right now with everything that's going on with this administration, we need to be laser focused on rooting out corruption among every single entity that we are contracting with.
1:16:47
So I'm very interested in what's gonna happen next year when the school bus contracts are up for renewal and what the DOE is going to do.
1:16:57
Have you made a decision yet on the renewal of those contracts?
Glenn Risbrook
1:17:00
We have notified our bus companies that we extend we we intend to have an a short extension.
Lincoln Restler
1:17:06
You're doing an extension.
Glenn Risbrook
1:17:07
Yeah.
Lincoln Restler
1:17:07
Okay.
1:17:08
So back in, help me here, 2021.
1:17:12
Nice plus was created.
1:17:13
Is that right?
Glenn Risbrook
1:17:15
That's correct.
Lincoln Restler
1:17:16
And you can please amend any characterization I make here.
