WAMU: Councilmember Jawando not opposed to having oversight hearings on "disaster" MCPS Electric School Bus Procurement

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  On Friday, April 25, 2025, Councilmember Will Jawando, Chair of the County Council's Education Committee, responded to a WAMU Politics Hour's caller question about the MCPS Electric School Bus Procurement and the failure of the Montgomery County Board of Education to comply with a Maryland Appellate Court ORDER to review that procurement award.

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• WAMU's transcript of the call and Councilmember Jawando's response is below.  The recording of the question and response can be heard at WAMU's link to the broadcast at minute 44:17.

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TRANSCRIPT: 

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• Janice, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

• Speaker: 600:44:21

  Thank you for taking my call. As with the Trump administration, we're seeing that court orders are not respected by Montgomery County Public Schools. Montgomery County was public schools was ordered in March of [2024] by the Maryland appellate court to review the award of a contract for a $168,000,000 on the electric bus procurement. To date, they have refused. Will the education committee hold oversight hearings on this procurement since the Board of Education has, to date, refused to abide by the court order that is still standing? Thanks. 

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• Thank you

• Speaker: 400:44:56

  for the call and the question. Good news on the electric bus contract, which was a disaster. I agree with you on that. It, we did receive they did we're able to negotiate the superintendent to get money back for the contract that's not fulfilled. That will be coming back to the system. I agree with you that more needs to be done on the investigation side of, how we move forward and what happened. And I would not be opposed to having those hearings, in the education and culture committee. But the good news is is we're out of the bad contract. We're gonna get money back. And while it's a good goal to green our bus fleet,

• Speaker: 200:45:28

  we need to make sure we're doing it in a responsible way.

 https://wamu.org/story/25/04/25/the-politics-hour-d-c-councilmember-charles-allen-on-the-3-billion-deal-for-a-new-d-c-football-stadium/