Ways and Means holds hearing on Boston Public Schools bus monitors contract and $1.05M funding transfer

On April 1, 2026, the Boston City Council Ways and Means Committee held a virtual hearing on two related dockets (0619 and 0620) that would move $1,046,178 from the city's collective bargaining reserve into the Boston Public Schools (BPS) budget and add a supplemental FY26 appropriation of $1,046,178 to cover terms in a new collective bargaining agreement with United Steelworkers Local 2936 for bus monitors. Chair Ben Weber opened the hearing and said the terms cover roughly 700 bus monitors and run from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2028.

Budget Director Jim Williamson told the committee that the city maintains a collective bargaining reserve for settled contracts and that these dockets would transfer the specific amount into the BPS appropriation to meet the contract's FY26 obligations. Williamson provided a fiscal breakdown showing the FY26 cost as $1,046,178 and a cumulative three-year cost of roughly $5.9 million.

BPS officials and the bargaining team summarized the agreement's key provisions. The contract includes 2% base-wage increases each fiscal year of the term, a $1.00-per-hour flat increase effective January 2026 and a $0.70-per-hour increase in January 2028, and operational changes intended to reduce friction in day-to-day work. Administration representatives said the agreement adds eight hours of required training during the school year (with paid time), provides 15 minutes of paid time for incident reports, codifies the use of employee IDs and safety vests while on duty, and transitions one previously duplicative paper distribution of bid packages to an electronic copy for the union to reduce printing and processing time.

Dan Rosengard, BPS executive director of transportation, described the monitor workforce and operational safeguards. Rosengard said monitors primarily support students with disabilities and that "every bus transporting students with disabilities is assigned at least one bus monitor." He told the committee that monitors do not receive city-issued work cell phones; instead, buses are equipped with two-way radios to communicate with BPS and Transdev dispatch and safety teams. Rosengard also said district staffing fell during the pandemic but has largely recovered; he reported about 40 current vacancies within a 750-person monitor cohort and said standby monitors, route repackaging and family notifications via ParentSquare are used when coverage gaps occur.

Committee members pressed for details on implementation and oversight. A councilor asked whether IEP-required monitor assignments ever resulted in buses leaving without a monitor; Rosengard acknowledged shortages in 2021–22 but said the district has systems to notify families and to send backup buses when needed, and he said student IEP information is pulled from EdPlan into transportation's "cover sheets" and bus-riding guideline templates used to train 1:1 monitors. Jim Williamson said the council had approved 10 collective bargaining agreements to date this fiscal cycle totaling about $85.3 million and that the reserve balance would be about $16.4 million after this transfer.

A union-affiliated witness, Darlene Lambos, testified in support of the contract, saying it matters for "some of the lowest-paid workers" and noting that many bus monitors are immigrant workers supporting families and neighborhoods. Officials declined to state a final vote during the hearing; Chair Weber said he planned to bring the dockets up for a vote but the transcript contains no formal roll-call or tally.

Next steps: the chair indicated he would place the dockets on the committee's consent or upcoming vote list; the hearing record was closed and the committee adjourned. The hearing record and any written public comments will be part of the official docket.