Page 43 - School Planning & Management, May 2017

As you can imagine, Bein finds the situation frustrating. On one hand, he wishes he were a little more in control of his destiny — that he had the drivers and buses. Then he’d know exactly who is getting picked up when and where. “Especially with special education students,” he says, “who need routine. And their fami- lies have enough challenges without also having to worry if their children are getting picked up.”
On the other hand, he’s not sure he could find bus drivers if the operation were brought in house. “It comes down to wages,” he explains. “Wages for bus drivers have grown 30 percent in this area in the last year, so it makes it difficult to control costs.” And he appreciates that, with a contract in place, he has some protec- tion against cost increases: “In a rapidly rising wage market,
my costs have not grown as much as they would have if I had the service in house.”
After last school year’s challenges, Bein strategized how to minimize challenges for this school year, opting to place a target bid for some routes that he knew his vendor couldn’t handle. “We received a couple of bids, and the low bidder has worked out great,” he says.
But, Bein’s problems have continued into this school year, when the vendor indicated there were more routes they could no longer handle. He contacted the company that won the recent bid, as well as a larger player in the market, and found someone to take the routes. He also substituted cab rides for some students.
“We told our vendor that, to the extent that our costs are higher, you have to pay the difference,” Bein says. “We shouldn’t be on the hook for any more expense just because they can’t perform the work stipulated in the contract.”
Bein thought about terminating the contract mid-year. But doing so meant having an option for transporting students, which he didn’t have. “Most firms don’t have idle buses and drivers just sitting around mid year,” he indicates.
Bein decided that the next step in solving his special education transportation challenges was to rebid, which he did. “The service has been so bad that we had to get out of the contract,” he says. “With the new bid and renewing the regular education transporta- tion contract, our costs are definitely higher. But we were able to hold the renewal rate to a five-percent increase, a tolerable level,
The benefit of investing in the outsourcing process and researching every angle is reaching a solidly made decision upon which you can stand and move forward with confidence.
The Right Choice. Challenges can and do occur in any part of school business, requiring officials to problem solve to the best of their abilities. The question isn’t whether outsourcing is right, but if it’s right for your specific situation. Factors like cost, the capability to provide the service and the ability to maintain the service to reasonable standards must be considered when weighing the option of outsourcing.
where our colleagues are seeing a 10-percent cost increase.”
In spite of these challenges, Bein finds that there are compelling
reasons to outsource. “I have worked with outsourcing throughout my career,” he notes. “I have worked with some services that are outsourced and some that are not. I can’t make an argument to bring back in house some of the things I’ve outsourced. If I had a strong belief that it should be 100 percent one way or the other, I would make a committed move in that direction.”
More, while Bein has had his challenges with outsourcing special education transportation, challenges can and do occur in any part of business without warning, requiring school business officials to problem solve to the best of their abilities as any busi- ness official in any industry must. The question then, isn’t whether outsourcing is right, but if it’s right for you.
Which raises a question: How do you know when it’s a better use of resources to outsource a service than it is to keep it in house? Karen Stinson, expert in digital and IT transformation at New York-based PA Consulting Group, sites three factors. The first is cost. “Cost is one factor, but it’s not the only factor, and it shouldn’t be the most important factor,” she says.
And Bein agrees. “There may be times where outsourcing is cost neutral, and it still makes sense to do it,” he indicates. “There also may be times when, just looking at the pure dollar basis, it may cost more and it still makes sense to outsource.”
This is because of the second factor, which is capability. Do you have the capability to offer the service in house, and is it to your competitive advantage to maintain the service? Bear in mind, says Stinson, that employees are the most expensive line item on your balance sheet.”
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