Plum School District pays $3K to settle dispute with transportation contractor

Plum School District paid $3,000 to settle a dispute with a transportation contractor that accused the district of failing to reimburse it during the covid disaster emergency.

The school board approved the agreement with A-1 Transit in July.

The district released the agreement following a Right-to-Know request by the Tribune-Review, in which the district invoked a 30-day extension it said was needed to conduct a legal review to determine if the agreement is a public document.

The settlement resolved a dispute dating to March 2022, when the school district appealed a district judge’s decision in favor of A-1 Transit awarding the company nearly $4,600, according to court records.

The school district won when the case went to arbitration in November. A-1 Transit was preparing to appeal that decision before the settlement was agreed upon, according to court records.

As part of the settlement, both sides agreed that they would not comment on the settlement or the lawsuit other than to say it had been resolved.

In court, A-1 Transit claimed it was owed $8,740.

The Pittsburgh-based company said it had an oral agreement with Plum to provide transportation for homeless students, and that it would be paid monthly. It said it was transporting multiple homeless students to Plum’s schools during the 2020 school year, but did not specify how many.

Students stopped being bused to school when Plum switched to remote learning because of the covid pandemic.

A-1 claimed it maintained its employees and remained “ready, willing and sufficiently able” to provide transportation to Plum, and that it was qualified and entitled under the state’s Act 136 of 2020 to reimbursement of its costs and expenses.

A-1 claimed the school district processed applications for other transportation providers, but not its own, resulting in it never receiving reimbursement funding it was entitled and qualified to receive under the act.

In its answer, the district said it used A-1 as a “last resort,” and that there was no written contract “because the district only used (A-1’s) services for a very limited number of cases, on an as-needed basis.”

Under their oral agreement, the district said it paid A-1 for the services it provided, but that the agreement did not entitle A-1 to any work, and there was no promise of future work.

The district said it opted to stop using A-1’s services around when it shut down for the pandemic.

The district argued that it was not under any requirement to pay transportation contractors for not providing services during the 2020 school year. It said the language of Act 136 “makes the decision to pay transportation contractors, for services not provided, totally discretionary on the part of the school district.”

Because Plum did not seek and was not obligated to seek any reimbursement for A-1’s services, “absolutely no payment is owed,” the district said.