Darien School District Seeks $850K For New Special Education Vehicles

DARIEN, CT — The Darien Board of Education is looking to secure a special appropriation of $850,000 to purchase nine new special education transportation vehicles for the 2024-2025 school year.

On Monday, the Board of Selectmen unanimously voted to green-light the request and recommend the item to the Representative Town Meeting. The Board of Finance will take up the item first.

The selectmen meeting was held at Darien Town Hall and broadcast via Darien TV79.

Board of Education Chair Jill McCammon explained that the school district currently uses a hybrid approach to providing special education transportation services, and for the past decade, the district has contracted with First Student.

The current contract with First Student expires at the end of June, and high bid results have caused the district to look elsewhere for these transportation services.

"If approved, this would enable the district to fully run its own special education transportation system," McCammon told the selectmen.

Due to the "initial capital outlay," McCammon added that the district would not experience savings this year.

"Going forward we expect to save over $400,000 — between $500,000 and $600,000 — in operating costs yearly," McCammon said. "Not only does this restructuring make financial sense in a multi-year period of increasing budgets, this makes a meaningful difference to our ability to serve students in other ways."

McCammon said the district already operates six Suburbans. "The vehicles serve all of our students who are eligible for and elect special education transportation, ELP through high school, and that includes our transition population."

The district is looking to add two more Suburbans, as well as two wheelchair accessible vans and five "Type II" vehicles to bring the fleet to 15 vehicles. The plan is to put in a purchase order for the vehicles in April.

"While not included in the appropriation in front of you tonight, we are building up some internal operational capacity, including nine drivers and bus monitors, and one transportation coordinator in our own budget," McCammon added.

Should final approval be granted and the transportation model be established, the fleet would be available for any transportation needs that make both financial and operating sense in the district.

The financial cost would have to be weighed to use the vehicles for weeked athletic trips, according to documents submitted with the agenda item.

Selectman Michael Burke asked McCammon if she's confident the fleet will be able to service anticipated needs.

"The number of people who are diagnosed with learning disabilities or behavioral issues is where we're seeing more growth," McCammon responded. "The students who are typically eligible for this type of service is more constant. We're up to around 130 now, but our average is around 107, and we've been able to deal with that fluctuating capacity."

The board expressed support for the appropriation.

"If I had to pick this year, next year or the year after which is going to be the easiest budget year for all those years, it would be this year just because of the debt service that's going to come online in the following two years," First Selectman Jon Zagrodzky said.

Additionally, McCammon said the district on Monday filed two applications with Planning & Zoning. The first is to get approval to increase the number of Suburbans at Central Office to eight, and the second is to park the buses and wheelchair vans near the Fitch program. McCammon said she was unsure if public hearings will be required for the applications.

Monday's full Board of Selectmen meeting can be viewed on Darien TV79.