Owner-Operators, All-Star Trace History in Busing

Newtown's school bus owner-operators all have a story of how they got into the business, such as Beth Koschel, who traced her start in the industry to her father, a former Newtown owner-operator.

Koschel tells the story of how when she went into the hospital to give birth to her children, her father opted to wait for her to come home before he came to visit. But after she received her school bus certification and pulled in for her first official bus run, her father was there to greet her. As he stood and watched, he wore the widest smile on his face, Koschel said.

“It was like my greatest accomplishment,” she said of her father’s reaction.

Koschel is hoping the Newtown family tradition she is helping to carry forward and the personal attention she puts into driving her school bus and caring for her charges will make the difference when it comes time to deciding whom to award the school bus contract.

“My parents, they care who’s behind the wheel,” she said of the mothers and fathers who trust her with their children.

Koschel is among 33 owner-operators, who independently own and maintain their buses. As a group, the owner-operators have submitted a $11.7 million bid for the five-year school bus contract.

Also competing for the contract is All-Star Transportation, a bus company started by three siblings, which submitted a $10.2 million bid.

to the Board of Education, which will decide whom to award the project.

All-Star has promised Newtown that if it wins the contract, all-new 2013 Blue Bird Vision school buses will be used on the routes, and that it will buy a property in town on which to keep the buses.

The company also said it would give preference to existing Newtown owner-operators and bus drivers when hiring, though owner-operators, such as Koschel, said she would not take the offer. All-Star's drivers are considered part-timers, and as such, don't earn enough to allow them to make a living in Newtown, she said Saturday.

John Dufour, his sister, Leslie and brother Richard, started All-Star Transportation in 2004, though in the past, they all worked for and owned various bus companies that they have since left or sold. The three also trace a family history in the industry, with their father running school buses in the 1960s in Lakeville.

“We were basically born into the bus business,” John Dufour told the Board of Education during the company’s presentation on Saturday.

Dufour, who once owned a bus company that carried his namesake before selling it to Laidlaw Transit in 1998, said he grew up in a bus garage and at one point in time, could take apart and reassemble a school bus from one end to the other.

Dufour said in an interview that one of the reasons the company submitted a bid for the Newtown contract was that it believed the school district was serious about making a change.

He said he appreciates what the owner-operators do but that a model that relies on independent owner and operators inherently costs more to operate than one run by a company. That  is one reason other towns have gone towards contracting with a bus company, Dufour said.

“They don’t have economies of scale,” he said of owner-operators.

All-Star has school bus contracts in Brookfield, New Milford and Oxford, which was one reason it made sense for the company to bid on the contract next-door in Newtown, Dufour said.

“It was a business decision,” he said.

Dufour said he would understand if Newtown decided to stay with the owner operator model and pay more, though he said recent news suggesting the was “not something we see in our business.”

Some Board of Education officials have said negotiating with the owner-operators prior to awarding the bid would be seen as favoritism.

“If they choose to do that, maybe I don’t want to be here,” Dufour said.

Editor's note: For a written synopsis of the Saturday meeting, see and for a video glimpse of what went on, see .