Assembly Bill A10447

                                BILL NUMBER:A10447

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend chapter 698 of the laws of 1996 amending
the  education  law relating to transportation contracts, in relation to
the effectiveness thereof

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:   This bill makes chapter  698  of  the
laws  of 1996 permanent which relate to the use of Request for Proposals
for pupil transportation contracts.

JUSTIFICATION:  Prior to the 1996 RFP law, children and school districts
would fall victim to school bus operators with, poor safety records  and
substandard  operations  because  they  were forced to choose school bus
companies based on price alone. Since that time, inferior operators have
been excluded from operating pupil transportation services and there  is
an ever growing number of school districts utilizing the RFP process.

The original sunset provision was necessary to determine whether the use
of RFPs for pupil transportation contracts would improve the delivery of
private  pupil  transportation services and it has, over a decade later,
proven to be a tremendous success  in  terms  of  providing  our  school
districts  with  an  efficient and safe transportation System. More than
that, continuing to renew these provisions every five years is an unnec-
essary waste of resources in addition to creating an  unnecessary  sense
of  uncertainty  for schools that want to utilize the RFP law to procure
pupil transportation services.