Full of Unknowns: DISD's Incomplete Transportation Plan

Yesterday DISD executives unveiled their first draft of a transportation plan to establish their own department.  I was fascinated to see how a $53 million a year bureaucracy was somehow going to be established in simply a manner of months.  The news media was there too.  In fact you can see me twice in this Channel 11 video (I'm wearing a green shirt here.)

Here is the actual slideshow presentation that was used by DISD executives.  For those who want to see the video of the whole meeting and the 1-hour presentation on the topic the link is here.   (You have to click on meetings and then find the record for November 30th meeting.  I have this already as a jump link above.) Scroll down the slideshow presentation and you'll come into a page (number 8 to be specific) entitled literally unknowns.  The headline is "We don't know what we don't know..."  Was this written by some school kid or someone high on drugs?   I appreciate the candor here but this represents utter panic behind the scenes whether DISD executives want to admit it or not.

I could write a bunch of blogs breaking this up and I think will indeed do that.  But a very quick general summary.  DISD wants to establish this department essentially in six months so it can operate for summer school students.  To do this, DISD will try to take over most or all of the physical property and human capital of Dallas County Schools (DCS.)  This means taking control of four major service centers and about 800 buses DISD doesn't own yet.  It also means hiring 1100+ new employees mostly from DCS.  Upwards of $90 million worth of debt may have to been incurred by the DISD from DCS to successfully get all of this done. What's most alarming is that DISD is not even 100% sure it will own all of the buses it gets from DCS.

There was no specific discussion about more specific topics like potential costs to acquire fuel or individual parts to actually run the school buses DISD will operate.  It was revealed in the presentation, DISD does not have any idea of how much in insurance costs it will incur for transportation at all.  What's more alarming is that in the presentation it was pointed out DISD does not have a designated head to run its new transportation department in its day-to-day operations yet!

I included this other news clip from FOX 4 so one can get a better feeling of acting being there.  Wait a minute and you'll find one of the union reps and Trustee Joyce Foreman expressing some of the same concerns here.  (Disclaimer:  I'm not sure where Channel 4 got the $47 million figure from.)