School Committee Continues to Mull Bus Shortage Question

FRAMINGHAM - Members of the Framingham School Committee met on Wednesday, February 28, as they continue to consider their options on how to alleviate the ongoing school bus shortage.

Families in Framingham continue to be served by, at most, 57 drivers a day. The contract the city has with NRT Bus, Inc. calls for 77 operators being provided to get students to and from school.

At this point, Executive Director of Finance and Operations for Framingham Public Schools Lincoln Lynch has advised the School Committee that the district can either keep utilizing NRT’s services or bring bus driving operations under the city government’s umbrella.

Drivers would become city employees if an in-house model is created. If Framingham does decide to go in that direction, they could lease vehicles through either NRT or New England Transit, Inc. Earlier in February, Lynch explained that the cost for in-house busing with the anticipation of the highest costs possible would be just south of $11 million with 77 insured drivers and approximately $9.5 million with 65 insured drivers.

School Committee member for District 4 Adam Freudberg proposed a slightly different version of the in-house model during Monday’s meeting. He suggested bringing the number of insured drivers down from 65 to 62, with the caveat that NRT would be kept on until the city can guarantee that they have 58 in-house drivers prepared to operate in Framingham.

Freudberg pointed to prior instances of Framingham school officials being left unsure of how many guaranteed bus drivers were at hand, as he added that the current NRT agreement would allow the school district to make the change whenever they feel ready.

“Let’s learn from the past,” Freudberg continued.

“Let’s wait until we have a guaranteed minimum of 58 and then go forward—because we need to fix busing in our community, but we also can’t just vote for in-house randomly. It needs to be guaranteed.”

Freudberg mentioned that both the current vendor model line item—about $8.6 million for the 2025 fiscal year—is similar enough to the roughly $9.3 million line item for his idea featuring 62 in-house drivers, as the latter offers benefits for operators, more guaranteed service for Framingham families, and control for the school district.

Members of the committee noted that they have time through their budgeting process to reach a final consensus, as they will loop the City Council and Mayor Charlie Sisitsky into their discussions.