Public Act 093-0953
 
HB5215 Enrolled LRB093 17860 NHT 43542 b

    AN ACT concerning schools.
 
    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
 
    Section 5. The School Code is amended by changing Section
29-6.4 as follows:
 
    (105 ILCS 5/29-6.4)
    Sec. 29-6.4. Non-contract transportation; bids;
reimbursement. A school board of a school district that
provides transportation of its pupils to and from school on
buses that are owned by the district that are operated by
drivers who are employed by the district shall, if it receives
a timely request from an interested private school bus
contractor that the district provide that transportation under
contract, solicit sealed bids for that purpose. A district or
special education cooperative is not required to respond to
such a request more than once every 2 years. For purposes of
this Section, A a request shall not be considered timely if
unless it is made in writing by certified mail, return receipt
requested, addressed to the school board of the district at the
administrative offices or any school of the district,
postmarked not more than 24 months or nor less than 3 months
before the expiration of the collective bargaining or other
agreement that is in effect at the time the request is made and
that governs the terms and conditions of employment of the
school bus drivers employed by the district. All requests shall
be made in writing by certified mail, return receipt requested,
addressed to the school board of the district at the
administrative offices or any school of the district. At the
conclusion of the bidding process, the school board shall
publicly announce the district's fully allocated costs of
providing transportation of its pupils to and from school under
its present system and thereupon may (i) elect to enter into a
contract as provided in Section 29-6.1 with the lowest
responsible bidder for transportation of the district's pupils
to and from school or (ii) elect to continue providing
transportation of its pupils to and from school under its
present system. In the event the school board elects to
continue providing transportation of the district's pupils to
and from school under its present system even though the
district's fully allocated costs of doing so exceed the amount
of the lowest responsible bid received by the school board for
transportation of the district's pupils to and from school, the
school board shall publicly announce at a regularly scheduled
meeting of the board held within 30 days after making its
election to continue providing pupil transportation under its
present system (i) the fully allocated costs of providing
transportation of the district's pupils to and from school
under its present system, and (ii) the amount of each of the
sealed bids submitted to the school board, identifying which of
the sealed bid amounts was the lowest responsible bid.
    As used in this Section the term "fully allocated costs"
includes both the fixed and variable direct costs of the labor,
capital, and material resources that are used by the school
district exclusively for purposes of providing transportation
of the district's pupils to and from school plus that portion
of the district's shared costs as is fairly allocable to the
products, services, and facilities necessary to provide
transportation of the district's pupils to and from school.
Direct costs of labor, capital, and material resources used
exclusively to provide pupil transportation include the wages,
payroll costs, and associated fringe benefits of school bus
drivers, mechanics, and any supervisory or administrative
personnel whose services relate exclusively to pupil
transportation personnel or services, fuel, lubricants, tires,
tubes, related material costs incurred in providing pupil
transportation, depreciation costs associated with school
buses and other vehicles, including spare vehicles, used to
provide pupil transportation, and costs of facilities and
equipment maintained exclusively to service, garage, or park
vehicles used for pupil transportation purposes. "Shared
costs" means the aggregate cost of the labor, capital, and
material resources that are used in common by the district for
a multiplicity of purposes, including the purpose of providing
transportation of the district's pupils to and from school. The
costs of the management, administration, and underlying
infrastructure that support a multiplicity of services
provided by the school district (including pupil
transportation services) constitute shared costs within the
meaning of this Section, and to the extent they are fairly
allocable to pupil transportation services they are included
within the term fully allocated costs as used in this Section.
The State Board of Education shall promulgate rules setting
forth the manner in which a district's fully allocated costs of
providing transportation of its pupils to and from school under
a non-contractual system shall be determined and computed for
purposes of this Section. However, those rules shall be
consistent with the provisions of this paragraph and shall
follow recognized principles of fully allocated costing
analysis in the transit industry, including generally accepted
methods of identifying and estimating the principal cost
elements of maintaining and operating a pupil transportation
system.
(Source: P.A. 89-151, eff. 1-1-96; 89-626, eff. 8-9-96.)