(105 ILCS 5/29-6.4)
Sec. 29-6.4. Non-contract transportation; bids;
reimbursement. A school board of a school district that provides
transportation of its pupils to and from school on buses that are owned by the
district that are operated by drivers who are employed by the district shall,
if it receives a timely request from an interested private school bus
contractor that the district provide that transportation under contract,
solicit sealed bids for that purpose. A district or special education cooperative is not required to respond to such a request more than once every 2 years.
A request
shall not be considered timely if it is made more than
24 months or less than 3 months before the expiration of the collective
bargaining or other agreement that is in effect at the time the request is made
and that governs the terms and conditions of employment of the school bus
drivers employed by the district. All requests shall be made in writing by certified mail, return receipt requested, addressed to the school board of the district at the administrative offices or any school of the district. At the conclusion of the bidding process,
the school board shall publicly announce the district's fully allocated costs
of providing transportation of its pupils to and from school under its present
system and thereupon may (i) elect to enter into a contract as provided in
Section 29-6.1 with the lowest responsible bidder for transportation of the
district's pupils to and from school or (ii) elect to continue providing
transportation of its pupils to and from school under its present system.
In the event the school board elects to continue providing transportation of
the district's pupils to and from school under its present system even though
the district's fully allocated costs of doing so exceed the amount of the
lowest responsible bid received by the school board for transportation of the
district's pupils to and from school, the school board shall publicly
announce at a regularly scheduled meeting of the board held within 30 days
after making its election to continue providing pupil
transportation under its present system (i) the fully allocated costs of
providing transportation of the district's pupils to and from school under its
present system, and (ii) the amount of each of the sealed bids submitted to the
school board, identifying which of the sealed bid amounts was the lowest
responsible bid.
As used in this Section the term "fully allocated costs" includes both the
fixed and variable direct costs of the labor, capital, and material resources
that are used by the school district exclusively for purposes of providing
transportation of the district's pupils to and from school plus that portion of
the district's shared costs as is fairly allocable to the products, services,
and facilities necessary to provide transportation of the district's pupils to
and from school. Direct costs of labor, capital, and material resources used
exclusively to provide pupil transportation include the wages, payroll costs,
and associated fringe benefits of school bus drivers, mechanics, and any
supervisory or administrative personnel whose services relate exclusively to
pupil transportation personnel or services, fuel, lubricants, tires, tubes,
related material costs incurred in providing pupil transportation, depreciation
costs associated with school buses and other vehicles, including spare
vehicles, used to provide pupil transportation, and costs of facilities and
equipment maintained exclusively to service, garage, or park vehicles used for
pupil transportation purposes.
"Shared costs" means the aggregate cost of the labor, capital, and material
resources that are used in common by the district for a multiplicity of
purposes, including the purpose of providing transportation of the district's
pupils to and from school. The costs of the management, administration, and
underlying infrastructure that support a multiplicity of services provided by
the school district (including pupil transportation services) constitute shared
costs within the meaning of this Section, and to the extent they are fairly
allocable to pupil transportation services they are included within the term
fully allocated costs as used in this Section. The
State Board of Education shall promulgate rules setting forth the manner in
which a district's fully allocated costs of providing transportation of its
pupils to and from school under a non-contractual system shall be determined
and computed for purposes of this Section. However, those rules shall be
consistent with the provisions of this paragraph and shall follow recognized
principles of fully allocated costing analysis in the transit industry,
including generally accepted methods of identifying and estimating the
principal cost elements of maintaining and operating a pupil transportation
system.
(Source: P.A. 93-953, eff. 1-1-05.)
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