A failure by the Department of Education to negotiate school-bus contracts is taking Big Apple taxpayers for a ride.
Bureaucratic foot-dragging has resulted in a series of “emergency” service extensions costing millions of dollars in extra costs, The Post has learned.
The latest extension came in May, when a deal to provide bus service for one month came with a staggering $130.6 million bill.
That’s at least $16 million more than normal for a single month, according to data provided by the city’s Independent Budget Office.
“This is yet another shameful example of DOE’s sloppy approach to fiscal discipline,” railed Comptroller Scott Stringer, who said the agency has kept him in the dark. “With billions of dollars at stake, cutting corners on procurement is bad for taxpayers and bad for our children.”
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza approved the extension for May with an option to extend it through June, for another $107.8 million, records show.
Over the last year, about 70 expired contracts have been extended on an emergency basis, said DOE spokesman Miranda Barbot, who would not reveal how much it socked the city in extra expense.
Contract negotiations have been stalled in part, she said, by a squabble with 17 bus companies that sued to block the DOE from imposing “employee protection provisions,” which require companies to hire drivers and attendants from a proscribed seniority list.
Mayor de Blasio, who is friendly with bus drivers’ union Local 1181 and its lobbyist, Harold Ickes, has pushed Albany to legalize the driver protections, unsuccessfully so far.
The steep costs were troubling to Isaac Carmignani, a member of the contract committee of the mayor’s Panel for Educational Policy, which is required to approve school contracts.
“How much more are we spending in the short term by re-upping the contracts instead of having them signed, sealed and delivered?” he asked.
Unlike other city agencies the DOE can approve emergency contracts without approval of the city’s Corporation Counsel and the Comptroller’s office.
DOE spokeswoman Barbot said: “New contracts will be submitted to the Comptroller, and we are excited for him to register them.”
