School Buses a Y team investigation

Last night the Y team was at Y Nott as it was wing night. We discussed this school bus issue and decided we needed to know more than we have read.

This morning on of our team contacted Mrs. Janet Smola at her FCBOE email and below is the response.

Only the sender's name and a reference to the sender are edited.

"Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:55 AM
To: smola.janet@fcboe.org
Subject: School buses for the air show

Dear Mrs. Smola:

I am trying to get facts regarding these school buses and the air show.

Would it be possible to get the amount paid by the air show for the buses in the past 5 years by year?

2002 $7528.64 to school system$449.50 to dispatcher
2003 $9215.64 to school system $644.90 to dispatcher
2004 $8940.25 to school system $666.43 to dispatcher
2005 $9734.00 to school system $722.01 to dispatcher
2006 10,112.38 to school system – $700.64 to dispatcher
2007 13,404.37 to school system - $932.19 to dispatcher

Dispatcher is a school system employee who dispatches and manages from parking lot. He’s not a bus driver so we have to pay him separately. Formula does not cover cost for a dispatcher so he bills us on his own.

Can you share the formula for the amount due?

Formula based on regularly published formula that is established each year for field trips. There is a driver per hour cost, a per mileage fee, a wear and tear fee and in the case of the air show or rec dept. trip additional insurance is placed on as a rider for the event and that fee is transferred directly to the invoice for the air show or rec dept to pay. Additionally, the air show also covers the busses and the parking lots on our overall insurance policy so actually the school system is covered twice at our expense.

Who drives these buses?

Each bus driver is assigned a bus each year by the school system for the entire year. These drivers drive their own busses for the air show. For example if Joe Smith is assigned bus #237 for the school year and he wants to drive for the air show he drives bus #237. Busses are not allowed off pavement so I don’t know where some blogger said we drive on dirt>

Who covers the insurance?

The Great Georgia Airshow purchases a policy that cover busses and school system property and any liability that could occur due to a fender bender etc. The school system also adds a rider to their insurance just for those two days and sends the bill for that to the air show.

Thanks for all you do.

My pleasure. Cannot return this message via fcboe e-mail because I’m home and nunan utilities does not recognize its address. Must convert to a numail account to send, though I can receive these messages. NuLink doesn’t know why. Hence the big mystery as to why I use NuMail account. Also anyone who works for the school system know our fcboe mail is not reliable. Ask most teachers."

Trust but Verify