School bus contracts sent to commission
A controversial school bus contract is headed to the County Commission for its May 20 meeting.
The commission’s Purchasing Committee recently approved the contract for a new vendor, Knoxville-based SCU, for seven routes, and voted to uphold that contract despite a legal challenge by the present contractor, Andersonville Bus Lines, over those routes.
Commissioner Aaron Wells made a motion and Commissioner Steven Verran seconded it to uphold an evaluation committee’s earlier recommendations. The same two commissioners moved and seconded the motion to approve the contract for the six routes, too.
Both of these motions passed unanimously.
Wells cited the opinion of County Law Director Jay Yeager in his decision. These votes came at a special meeting April 22.
Katherine Kleehammer, Anderson County deputy purchasing agent, said SCU shared that it had worked with more than 200 previous clients. She said the decision to award the bid for routes previously driven by other contractors, including Andersonville Bus Lines, to SCU will save the county $171,907.
The evaluation committee had already chosen SCU for these routes.
However, Andersonville Bus Lines has emphasized its experience working on these specific routes, and other factors as putting it ahead of SCU.
“This family of drivers shares a huge connection with the students that they transport; often the kids are with the drivers more than they are with their own parents,” said Andersonville Bus Lines President David Landreth at the April 22 meeting. He also cited his company’s work sponsoring student athletes and activities.
“We are confident that if all the facts and circumstances are accounted for, we will get to continue to operate our routes,” he said.
Wells, however, said the Purchasing Committee needs to uphold the evaluation committee.
“Our only scope of what we can look at in this decision is the legality of the contract itself,” he said, adding he saw nothing illegal in the bid process.
Yeager at the meeting echoed Wells’s words.
“We can’t look at the correctness of the decision or the effects of the decision,” he said.
“You have to look at ‘is the process legal?” he said. “Is there fraud involved?’ And we can’t see fraud or any illegal activity at all involved in it.”