NAMPA, Idaho — Transportation changes hit Nampa School District (NSD) starting in the 2024-2025 school year.
Brown Bus Company has been busing Nampa students for 64 years. Typically, they are on a five-year contract, renewing when the time comes.
But come July 30, the relationship will end, as the contract expires that day, Matt Sizemore, a spokesperson for the school district told KTVB.
In Spring of this year, Nampa School District and Brown Bus Co. met to discuss what a renewal contract would look like. It was revealed that the renewal would be about $2 million more a year that the school district could afford, Courtney Stauffer, the executive director of operations said at the Tuesday, June 11 special board meeting.
They were budgeting for about $8 million a year for the transportation contract.
"The district had no way of being able to afford at that point, nor was the district in the positions to make more cuts to make that contract," Superintendent Dr. Greg Russel said at Tuesday's meeting.
KTVB reached out to NSD Monday for more information about cost details and other things. The district was not available for an interview.
After discovering the increase in costs, the district was left to make a choice, renew the contract for more money than they had and continue to make cuts, or go to bid and hope a different transportation company would offer a contract at a cheaper cost.
Per board trustees' direction, the district went to bid. It was a four-week open process, and bids were due June 10.
The district received bids from two companies: Brown Bus Co., and First Student Buses.
KTVB reached out to Brown Bus Co., on Monday for more information about the initial renewal prices, versus what they wrote up during the bid process. They said they had no information to share at this time.
When the district received the bid documents, a few things were missing with the Brown Bus' Company Documents.
The company missed, or didn't fill out, a few sections for fixed costs amounts and shuttle costs. Shuttles takes student back and forth between schools for programs, the board said in Tuesday's meeting.
Once again, the district had to make a choice to go forward with Brow Bus' offer, choose the bid from First Student, or restart the bid process over.
"We do feel like we have a non-responsive bid due to the variables that were not included in the bid that allow us to actually determine the accurate value of the contract for bid number two (Brown Bus)," Stauffer said at Tuesday's meeting.
In a letter to the district, Brown Bus said their fixed costs were included in a different section of the spreadsheet. But the district still had questions. A copy of the letter was shared at Tuesday's meeting.
"You don't put a fixed cost in a bid and say, 'let's talk about it later', of what those costs might be," Vice Chair, Jeff Kirkman said at Tuesday's meeting. "That just doesn't sit with me."
Stauffer and other board members were if they reopened the bid process, which would be another four-week process, that they might not having busing in time for the first day of school.
Stauffer also told the board, there's really only one qualified bid - the one from First Student Buses.
At the end of the discussion the board approved the bid from First Student, that will cost the district $7million a year. Because the district was budgeting for $8 million a year, this will save them about $1 million a year.
Sizemore said more information about what this change will look like will be shared at the Tuesday, June 18 board meeting and final budget hearing.
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