Brockton schools report $11 million spent on private transportation; superintendent outlines fixes and a plan to return to FinCom in April

Superintendent of Schools Priya Taheleani told the Brockton Finance Committee on March 17 that the school district has spent nearly $11 million on student transportation from July 1 through March 10 and identified immediate and longer-term steps intended to reduce costs and improve oversight.

Taheleani said the district is transporting 9,177 students overall and that private transportation costs from July 1, 2024, through March 10, 2025, total about $4.5 million for categories that include door-to-door and out-of-district routes. She added the district transports 839 students to selected out‑of‑district placements and 1,593 students on door-to-door routes. "It is clear to me that the integration ... of transportation in the school into the school department has been both challenging and at times flawed," Taheleani said.

The superintendent placed the current shortfall in the context of district appropriations and state rules: the city provided roughly $17 million in non‑net‑school‑spending appropriations this year, and Taheleani said the district had originally projected roughly $19.5 million in transportation costs, leaving a gap the district has been working to close. She emphasized that net school spending (Chapter 70) cannot be used for routine student home‑to‑school transportation and said the district will reclassify certain special‑education tuition expenses to free up circuit‑breaker funds for transportation. "We do have approximately $3,000,000 in special education transportation costs that can be reclassed," she said.

Taheleani summarized operational findings and corrective actions taken so far: - Vendor and contract controls: district staff reviewed vendor files and executed letters of agreement, updated and collected certificates of insurance, and uploaded records into Munis. Of 253 vendor files reviewed, 90 vendors were actively transporting students; the district has executed agreements and updated certificates for those active vendors and is finishing updates to list the City of Brockton as an additional insured where required. - Invoice and bidding review: the district audited vendor invoices, found overbilling and billing errors in one high‑cost vendor (approximately $276,000 paid to transport 11 students across 9 routes during a seven‑month period), and has begun rebidding clustered routes rather than bidding students singly. Taheleani reported an example where rebidding clustered out‑of‑district students produced low bids of $100 and $249 that could save roughly $31,000 per month versus prior pricing. - Technology and time tracking: 35 district buses have GPS tablets and combo readers; 24 were actively reporting. Taheleani proposed using tablet features (student scanning, time tracking, parent app) more broadly; the software would cost about $18 per bus per month, and additional buses would require roughly $1,000 each in hardware if added. - Staffing and structure: the district has hired consultants with routing expertise, posted and interviewed for an administrative position to reconcile invoices and attendance, intends to recruit a transportation director with prior department oversight experience, and plans an office restructuring to strengthen operations. - Safety and vendor checks: after an incident in which a private bus was driven by a person not on the approved list, the district separated from that vendor and initiated random in‑school checks led by the district's safety and security director, Rob Jackson.

Taheleani also described programmatic options being considered to reduce vendor reliance and costs. One option is changing the scheduling tier for the Barrett Russell pre‑K site to reduce the number of private tier‑3 vans required and free up small district buses; moving Barrett Russell to tier 2 (beginning September 2025) would, Taheleani said, free 11 small district buses that could then be redeployed. She noted that pre‑K transportation is not universally required: "We are actually required to provide transportation for K to 6 students only," she said, while explaining the district provides additional transportation for pre‑K students who require door‑to‑door service for IEP or other reasons.

Committee members asked for additional details and follow‑up. Councilor Rodriguez framed the issue as a joint city–school concern: "there is no such thing as the school side, the city side. It's the Brockton side," he said. Councilors asked for specific savings estimates for the tier change, access to the new Open Architects spending dashboard, and more granular passenger counts per route. Taheleani said the dashboard is live and will be made available to the school committee and to the CFO; she also said the district will pursue more complete student scan‑in data and use it to validate vendor billing.

After discussion, the Finance Committee voted to postpone the item to the second Finance Committee meeting in April so the superintendent can return with additional detail and updates on the actions she described. The motion to postpone was made and seconded; the committee recessed action to that April meeting.

Taheleani left the committee with a short list of near‑term steps: continue the invoice audit, rebid routes with aggregated student clusters, formalize vendor penalties for overbilling, expand use of bus tablets and the dashboard, complete insurance updates, and complete recruitment for key transportation office positions. She said the district and city are also coordinating advocacy to state legislators for higher special‑education transportation reimbursement rates.

The committee's postponement preserves committee oversight while the superintendent implements changes and collects additional evidence of savings and operational improvements. Taheleani and her team are scheduled to return to the Finance Committee in April with updated figures and more detailed proposals.