{"id":132529,"date":"2020-12-13T01:57:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T22:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/nyc-school-bus-deal-lets-de-blasio-donor-avoid-pension-debt-experts\/"},"modified":"2020-12-13T01:57:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-12T22:57:04","slug":"nyc-school-bus-deal-lets-de-blasio-donor-avoid-pension-debt-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/nyc-school-bus-deal-lets-de-blasio-donor-avoid-pension-debt-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"#NYC school bus deal lets de Blasio donor avoid pension debt: experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#NYC school bus deal lets de Blasio donor avoid pension debt: experts<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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School bus drivers will refuse to work for the city\u2019s new nonprofit bus company unless it guarantees the payment of employee pension liabilities currently totaling $142 million, a union official told The Post.<\/p>\n

The city bailed out a major donor to Mayor de Blasio when it set up the nonprofit NYC School Bus\u00a0Umbrella Services, Inc. to take over Reliant Transportation and it\u2019s 900 routes for children with special needs starting in January.<\/p>\n

The controversial deal \u2014 to be voted on Monday by a Department of Education panel \u2014\u00a0 benefits Reliant co-owner Alex Lodde, who donated $100,000 to de Blasio\u2019s scandal-ridden 2014 effort to bankroll a Democratic majority in the state Senate.<\/p>\n

Under a contract with NYCSBUS, the city will pay $890 million over five and a half years to operate the buses, or about $1,095 per day, which the DOE says is comparable to what the private companies get. Last year, the DOE supplemented payments to Reliant with a $36 million grant. <\/p>\n

The DOE\u00a0said it believes the takeover will improve services for 10% of the students it\u00a0transports to and from school. It will continue to pay private companies for the other 90%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In what critics call a shady part of the deal, it protects Reliant from having to pay a \u201cwithdrawal liability\u201d for any pension debts five years after it is sold.<\/p>\n

\"ATU
ATU Local 1181 president Michael Cordiello<\/figcaption>
William Farrington<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cReliant\u2019s owner is getting a very good deal, allowing it to walk away,\u201d said Patrick Sullivan, a former member of the Panel for Educational Policy, which will vote on the contract. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the new nonprofit will shield Reliant\u2019s owner from liability for withdrawing from the pension plan, sources said, which help explains why the city created it to run the Reliant buses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel very confident that the way this deal is structured avoids a withdrawal liability,\u201d\u00a0 DOE contracting officer Nicolas Storelli-Castro told the Panel for Educational Policy\u2019s contract committee Friday.<\/p>\n

Industry insiders said the city is \u201cplaying Russian Roulette\u201d with the workers\u2019 pensions, but a union leader told The Post it won\u2019t happ<\/a>en on his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cEither the nonprofit is on the hook, or we\u2019ll go after Reliant \u2014 and we won\u2019t wait five\u00a0 years,\u201d said Michael Cordiello, president of ATU Local 1181, which represents Reliant\u2019s 2,000 bus drivers and attendants.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Education advocate Leonie Haimson<\/figcaption>
Theodore Parisienne<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cordiello said the union has yet to meet with the nonprofit to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. NYCSBUS will be led by a board of trustees including Chancellor Richard Carranza and three others he appoints. An executive director will be hired.<\/p>\n

Education advocate Leonie Haimson was stunned that the worker pension costs remain in question.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is truly irresponsible for the city to go ahead with an apparent sweetheart deal without first negotiating an agreement with the union to confirm exactly how much this purchase will cost city taxpayers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The $890 million deal comes as the DOE is being hit with an another huge, and unexpected, expense.\u00a0The state, which usually reimburses district busing costs at 50%, will not give any funding for the period all schools were closed during the Covid shutdown starting Mid-March. The DOE agreed to pay bus companies $225 million \u2014 largely for pension debts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disappointed with this interpretation, which results in further financial challenges for us and every district in the state, especially during a financial crisis caused by COVID,\u201d said DOE spokeswoman Danielle Filson. <\/p>\n

.\u00a0\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#NYC school bus deal lets de Blasio donor avoid pension debt: experts” School bus drivers will refuse to work for the city\u2019s new nonprofit bus company unless it guarantees the payment of employee pension liabilities currently totaling $142 million, a union official told The Post. The city bailed out a major donor to Mayor de…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/12\/Bill-de-Blasio2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[83539,5042,71127,83652,70643,76158,73428,71347],"class_list":["post-132529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-12-12-20","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-campaign-contributions","tag-department-of-educatio","tag-department-of-education","tag-donors","tag-pensions","tag-school-buses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}