By Adam Studzinski

NORMAL – Unit 5 is entering a new three year contract with First Student, the company hired in 2012 to handle the district’s transportation.

District attorney Curt Richardson said the district could have extended the original agreement, but chose to go through a competitive bid process as a way to drive down the price of the contract.

“That in addition to we knew there needed to be some contract revisions,” said Richardson. “We needed to get more specific with regard to communications, with regard to making sure that we were aware of disciplinary problems that were occurring on our buses so that we could address those.”

First Student was the lowest bidder with an offer of $7.4 million.

Richardson explained the new contract requires a designated communications person to be in place.

“One of the complaints we’ve heard over the last three years is that people will try calling a number out at the transportation department for one reason or another, to inquire on something, and they will not get a response,” said Richardson. “Or they’ll have somebody that will pick up that will not know the answer to the question.”

Richardson added Unit 5 is working with First Student to drive the price down a little more.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].