Breaking: MCPS Doesn't Know if $168M Electric School Bus Procurement Scheme is Budget-Neutral ~and~ Two Sets of Bid Evaluations Surface for Electric School Bus Contract Award.

February 7, 2023

Before the Montgomery County Council 

Hearing on Spending Affordability Guidelines for the FY24 Operating Budget 

Public Comment

Janis Zink Sartucci on behalf of

Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, MD

The Montgomery County Council is holding this hearing to review affordability.

The Merriam-Websters Dictionary defines affordability as “able to be afforded, having a cost that is not too high.”

Today’s hearing is about affordability in funding county government entities. 

Yet, the County Council neither expects nor demands that the agencies they fund evaluate the affordability of their purchases. County entities funded by the Council are free to spend without ever even reviewing the cost of their purchases. 

Case in point: MCPS has gained national attention for what it claims is a budget-neutral electric school bus scheme.

MCPS entered into a 4-year, $168,684,990 million dollar contract to replace ¼ of its diesel school buses with electric school buses. 

The question is, is this scheme affordable?

I asked MCPS for the financial models the then MCPS Transportation Director, Todd Watkins, claimed had been used to approve this scheme.

I filed a Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) request for the financial models used to evaluate the electric school bus scheme. The response from MCPS was, there are no responsive documents. 

Assuming that was a mistake, I asked again. I got the same response. There are no responsive documents. 

Not surprisingly, just last week, MCPS Chief Operating Officer Brian Hull told Board of Education members that this year MCPS will begin evaluating to see if MCPS is achieving savings on the fuel and maintenance in the electric school bus scheme. 

It looks as if the national press on the MCPS electric school bus scheme is premature. 

Another surprise in the MCPS electric school bus procurement was the appearance of two sets of RFP Bid Evaluation and Selection Criteria documents from the same date and from what appears to be the same MCPS reviewer. 

I received one set of Bid Evaluation documents from MCPS in my MPIA request and another set was filed in litigation in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

[Both sets of Bid Evaluation and Selection Criteria forms are shown below in SCRIBD. The two documents do not match yet have the same date. 

There were apparently only 3 MCPS reviewers of the electric school bus RFP.  One of the reviewers had given Alpha Struxure a 94% rating, but that rating was thrown out on one of the 12/2/2020, Evaluation forms shown below. The other Evaluation form of the same date rated Alpha Struxure. 

One set of Evaluations was done in October 2020, one in November 2020, and one in December 2020.  Each date appears to have been done by a separate MCPS reviewer. 

Why did the December 2020 reviewer, former MCPS DOT Director Todd Watkins, create two different Evaluations of the Alpha Struxure proposal?]

Juxtapose the two sets of Electric School Bus Bid Evaluation documents, from what appears to be the same person, with the revelation in the September 2022 Maryland Office of Legislative Audits report on MCPS that revealed:  

...the existence of an account maintained by a transportation vendor outside the control of MCPS’ Office of Finance that was funded with amounts owed to MCPS. This “off the books” account was used to make payments to several MCPS employees and to purchase goods and services circumventing MCPS’ established policies and procedures...

Would those alleged kickbacks to MCPS staff have possibly influenced the electric school bus procurement selection process? 

Here’s what we know:

We know that a MCPS diesel bus transportation vendor was also a subcontractor on the Highland Electric Transportation proposal.

Is the MCPS electric school bus scheme affordable? We don’t really know. Might the Montgomery County Council consider investigating this $168 million dollar procurement as they evaluate how to fund our public school system? That might be a good idea.

Thank you for your time. 

Janis Zink Sartucci

Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD

parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com 

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

2020 Alpha Stuxure Bid Eval... by Parents' Coalition of Montg...

2020 Alpha Stuxure Bid Eval... by Parents' Coalition of Montg...