NSTA Meets for a Conference of 'Firsts'

School bus contractors broaden legislative and regulatory agenda for 109th Congress, take aim at beefing up school bus security.

TAMAYA RESORT, N.M. - When school bus contractors met here recently for the annual four-day annual mid winter board meeting of the National School Transportation Association, several firsts emerged, including details of a new partnership with the United Motorcoach Association (UMA).

Tamaya is located about 30 miles north of Albuquerque and takes its name from an ancient Indian village. Pueblos here are still occupied during annual festivals by Native American families that date their ownership and lineage back more than eight centuries.

These mid-winter meetings are typically organized to update committee assignments, and firm up association goals and objectives for the coming year in the legislative and regulatory arenas. Among the firsts this year, NSTA members first learned of the specifics centering the new UMA partnership, which has been in the works for the past six months. The partnership was first announced plans in November.

The UMA represents more than 900 privately-owned charter and tour companies nationwide. Four years ago, following some highly publicized accidents of motor coaches engaged in school service, UMA responded by developing and publishing a white paper outlining safety considerations for student travel by motorcoach.

The new NSTA/UMA partnership evolved as both organizations came to recognize that many of the goals, lobbying objectives and strategies of the two organizations are "similar and moving down parallel tracks," said Victor Parra, president and CEO of the UMA during a keynote address. "We surveyed our members and found that 20 percent of them operate school buses."

Parra cited several common challenges both associations face in common including driver shortages, fuel costs, property and casualty insurance, workers comp, health
insurance and safety training. "We struggle with similar issues that NSTA struggles with," he said. "Imagine what we can do if we partner together on these issues?" Moreover, since both associations represent privately owned companies both have common tax concerns. Numerous provisions of the pending TEA-21 highway reauthorization bill are of concern to both associations, too.

Commenting on the new partnership with UMA, Dale Krapf, president of the NSTA, said that membership recruitment will be one of the major initiatives of the new partnership. "UMA added 200 new members to their organization in the last 18 months.

They've done that with a carefully planned membership marketing program and that's something we've never had. NSTA represents a lot of buses but we don't represent a lot of contracting companies. We decided last summer we need to go back to our roots and attract smaller and midsize operators," he said. He added that NSTA's "membership initiative needs to be driven by professionals and not volunteers." Parra noted that UMA is hiring a full-time professional to work on membership recruitment.

NSTA recently relocated its offices and now shares office space with UMA near the nation's capital. Krapf stressed that the associations will remain independent and that policy initiatives will remain with the respective boards of directors.

POSTA

Another first occurred during the conference when the leadership of all three major school bus industry associations appeared together on the dais.

Pete Japikse, state director of pupil transportation in Ohio and president of the National State Directors Association, and Steve Kalmas, president of NAPT, were invited to address contractors during the opening general session. Dennis Hammell, a contractor from New Jersey, moderated the session.

Pete Japikse NASDPTS	Steve Kalmas NAPT	Dennis Hammell NSTA

What brought the three associations together - a first in the history of each organization - was the so-called MOU committee. The nametag is a bit of a misnomer; the acronym MOU emanates from a futile, two-year long effort by the three associations to develop a memorandum of understanding to describe common, industry-wide goals and objectives for purposes of presenting a united industry front when they go up on Capital Hill to lobby the federal government. "The memorandum of understanding never came to pass," observed Krapf.

"So we started talking in Salt Lake City at NAPT in 2003," added Hammell. Strongly held differences of opinion and misunderstandings soon surfaced threatening to shatter the fledgling effort.

Step in Michael Cancelliere, the newly appointed vice president of bus production at International Truck & Engine. At last summer's NSTA annual Conference, Cancelliere offered to serve as a referee and help bridge the differences between the associations. His efforts soon met with success. In place of an umbrella memorandum of understanding, a working group comprised of the leaders of the three associations began meetings last September under Cancelliere's guidance. The group now meets every six weeks in Chicago, and holds weekly conference calls, to discuss matters of common interest.

Japikse and Charles Gauthier represent NASDPTS, Steve Kalmes and Mike Martin represent NAPT, and Terry Thomas and Dennis Hammell represent NSTA on the new committee. The group is known by many names: the MOU Committee, the "Three Ps," which stands for the three presidents, and the POSTA group - yet another alphabet soup acronym - for the presidents of student transportation associations.

Whatever the committee is called is not as important as what it has begun to accomplish. "We've learned there are things we agree on, but not everything," said Japikse. "Now we decide what we agree on and what we don't. It is not a marriage."

Japikse said that as a state director of pupil transportation he worries about funding, school bus safety, drivers, the CDL and regulations. "So I think we are worried about the same things," he told contractors.

Steve Kalmes, president of NAPT added, "It really has been important for our association to work with our industry partners. In the spring of 2003 (our association) got together for strategic planning, and our number one priority was to set up an industry summit to address common issues and concerns, to develop positive working relationship with the other associations, and create a mechanism to address common concerns."

Security Task Force

During a joint presentation by the POSTA committee, members elaborated on the recently announced Transportation Security Task Force.

Each association has already begun to develop school bus security programs for its membership to confront the growing menace of terrorism. Rather than duplicate efforts, the three presidents decided to combine forces. After all, a yellow bus is a yellow bus and ownership or management doesn't matter when it comes to providing security. The industry-based task force is charged with developing security programs for school districts and contractors alike. Contractors decided to adopt the "School Bus Driver Security Training Program" by the New Mexico Department of Education as the model for their program. "We will have it available in time for the mid summer, back-to-school orientation sessions," said Krapf.

Bus Bomb Video

The task force discussion led to the most dramatic first at the conference. Japikse showed a video of the school bus bombing demonstration conducted in Cincinnati last fall at the annual NAPT conference. "The reason we blew up a bus was the culmination of people asking us if we were ready, if we had a plan and if we were planning for the future," he said.

Though only a few minutes in length, the video's effect was palpable.

Japikse explained that even when the fuel gauge registers empty school buses contain about five gallons of fuel in the lines and fuel tanks. The first explosion visible in the video was a wall of flame flashing through the school bus. It was followed an instant later by the detonation of a three pound bomb placed under a seat positioned over the rear axle. The second explosion blasted the windows, rear door and all flammable materials - foam, vinyl seat covers, metal and glass - hundreds of yards. As if gripped in the maw of a giant can opener, the roof peeled off the rear half of the bus, curled back on itself and slammed down onto the engine cowling. Gasps were heard from contractors in the audience, who collectively own and manage more than 50,000 school buses. "It sent a shockwave through the audience and got everyone's attention," said Krapf. The scene was shown repeatedly in real time and in slow motion.

This was the first time most contractors in the audience had seen the video and the first public showing of the video at a major industry conference. NAPT and NASDPTS are collaborating on the development of a security workshop based on the video and threats that terrorists pose to school buses. The workshop will be available at pupil transportation conferences and to the public at large later this spring.

Japikse underscored the importance of robust school bus security plans when he noted, "In Ohio, every day we have 80 percent of the school children in our state in a yellow bus! (Presently) it is an issue of when it is going to happen. We have to get back to if it is going to happen," he said.

Highway Watch

By the time this article appears in print, the Three Ps will have met with the American Trucking Association to discuss the ATA's Highway Watch Program. "They contacted us and want to involve the yellow bus industry in their program," said Krapf.

The pending meeting is an element of NSTA's advocacy initiative to raise public awareness of the vulnerability of yellow school buses to terrorist threats. Contractors hope that a school bus module can be incorporated into the program so that school bus drivers nationwide can be trained in this neighborhood watch type of program. "Our template for that is the New Mexico program," said Krapf.

NSTA said it believes that school bus drivers have greater familiarity with America's neighborhoods in their daily runs taking children to and from home and school than do over-the-road truck drivers.

NSTA also announced it is seeking a meeting with Assistant Secretary for Transportation Security Administration, Adm. David Stone, in hopes of gaining the TSA's commitment to provide federal funding for school bus security. NSTA wants to discuss broad school bus security issues including training, threat assessments and vulnerability mitigation with the TSA. NSTA said it will discuss its meeting request with NAPT and NSDPTS in hopes of soliciting their support for the meeting with Admiral Stone. The association "wants to approach Congress with the unified message that the school bus industry has not received the focused public attention from the federal government" that other modes of transportation have received, said Becky Weber, a consultant with BKSH, the lobbying firm that is spearheading NSTA's efforts on Capital Hill.

One more first should be mentioned. NSTA announced that final agreement has been reached with Jenna Dorn, administrator of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), on the wording of a "Dear Colleague" letter clarifying the service that states what publicly funded mass transit systems are and are not allowed to legally engage in while providing student transportation service. The interpretation letter, and an accompanying school bus brochure explaining private sector rules and regulations in plain English, will be distributed to all public transit agencies nationwide. It will be open to public comment and NSTA announced its intention to submit comments once the document is made available. NSTA has been actively working on this project for the last three years.

Federal Legislation

The government committee drew the greatest interest from assembled contractors. Not surprisingly, NSTA has an ambitious agenda of legislative and regulatory initiatives for the 109th Congress. Its legislative strategy is based on partnering with other industries and associations in joint efforts when interests coincide. "We are forming coalitions for just about every issue we are working on, and it's making a big difference," said Weber.

Krapf said that in the decade of the 1970s and 1980s, "legislation and regulation of yellow buses was handed down from state government. Now the major initiatives seem to be coming from the federal government.

Among the key NSTA initiatives is a proposal to protect current charter bus regulations from further encroachment. Some public transit agencies and Members of Congress are urging legislation to allow public mass transit to perform charter work for local governments and private social service entities. Contractors see this as a back door ploy that would enable transit agencies to provide more school transportation service. "After all, lots of school districts are arms of local governments," said one contractor.

NSTA's government relations committee also discussed formation of a coalition to address the issue of passenger van safety. "We hope to form a coalition with the insurance groups, church organizations and others," said Weber. She thinks both Senator Olympia Snow (D - ME) and Rep. Morris Udall (R - CO) will reintroduce their 15 passenger van bills in the 109th Congress.

The subcommittee discussed the EPA's Clean School Bus USA initiative and the continuing efforts to get authorizing legislation and annual appropriations funding authorized by Congress, as well as clarifying eligibility for private contractors for various clean school bus grants.

Weber also provided a list of Members of Congress identifying changes in leadership and key players on committees of importance to NSTA objectives. She then announced plans for a fly-in scheduled for March 16 to promote the association's agenda on Capital Hill. Contractors are hopeful the NAPT and NASDPTS will join together in a joint effort to lobby key legislators, as the three associations did a year ago. If so, this will be the second time the three associations have cooperated in taking the industry's message to Capital Hill.

Source: Reprinted from School Transportation News
March, 2005. All rights reserved.