New York City public schools left tens of millions of dollars on the table last year in penalties from yellow bus companies, as poor service continues to strand students and force parents to miss work, a new comptroller’s audit found Wednesday.
The penalties were for violations related to GPS technology that drivers must log into at the start of their routes so parents can track the bus or their children once aboard.
But Comptroller Brad Lander found that school transportation officials assessed damages in just 5.5% of cases where drivers did not log in, collecting $1.7 million in penalties. That left $42.6 million in uncollected penalties for the one category of contract breach, according to the audit.
“For decades, our City’s school bus system has failed our students and families,” Lander said in a statement. “Parents and guardians miss work, students miss class and breakfast, and kids with disabilities are stranded when our school bus system lacks the accountability and organization we need to fix systemic issues.”
The audit followed months of pain and uncertainty across the $2 billion school bus sector, including a contract dispute that threatened to derail service for tens of thousands of students.
At the start of the school year, the Panel for Educational Policy, the city’s pseudo-school board in a system controlled by the mayor, declined to rubber-stamp a lengthy contract extension without a path forward to improve yellow bus service. Last month, the city and companies finalized a retroactive extension for three years, rather than the original term of five years, as advocates push for more sweeping changes at the state level.
Many of the panel members’ concerns with school bus performance were reflected in the comptroller’s data.
Parents made more than 15,000 calls about late pick-ups or arrivals during the 2023–24 school year, and lodged over 14,000 complaints about yellow bus no-shows, according to the audit. Those figures could be an undercount: There were more than 5,000 reports of disconnected calls.
Students approved for bus service disproportionately have disabilities or are homeless.
“Comptroller Lander’s team has confirmed, with data, what frustrated school bus families and workers have said for years: that this service must be done better, with more forethought and less waste,” said Sara Catalinotto, co-founder of Parents to Improve School Transportation, a parent advocacy group better known by its acronym: “PIST.”
“What other school system outsources busing to 48 private companies, considers two hours an acceptable route length, and treats K-12 as a single age group?” Catalinotto added. “Intentions aside, the current approach objectively sets students up for educational harm.”
Dominique Ellison, a spokeswoman for the public schools, said the audit lacks “critical context.”
In their formal response to the comptroller, as part of the audit, education officials wrote that while the number of delays may seem high, the figures “should not be viewed without context regarding the scope of school bus operations in New York City” — with upwards of 8,000 routes, running twice per day.
In total, officials issued $4.9 million in liquidated damages to yellow bus companies for any number of service issues, according to data from last fiscal year.
“We always investigate any and all complaints thoroughly, hold all individuals accountable for any major issues, and we have made significant progress throughout the years,” Ellison said.
