LYNN — North Reading Transportation (NRT) is suing the city of Lynn for breaching its contract by failing to pay NRT since March 2020.
According to the attorney for NRT, Alycia Kennedy, NRT has provided services to the Lynn Public Schools throughout the pandemic and the contract states the city needs to pay for those services.
An NRT representative listed some of those services as fixed costs that include vehicle equipment, maintenance, excise tax and insurance, and rent and utilities.
“They stopped paying entirely on these contracts back when schools went remote in March of last year,” Kennedy said. “But NRT has continued to provide other services that are called for under the contracts and they’re looking for payment for those.”
Kennedy said outstanding payments were a widespread problem toward the beginning of the pandemic for many school bus companies, but NRT was able to reach agreements with most of the companies it works with.
“In terms of NRT, they have hundreds of school districts that they service and there really is a small handful of them that haven’t been able to come to agreements to fix the problem,” she said.
In an email exchange between Kennedy and the city’s attorney, George Markopoulos, Kennedy says NRT has been trying since the outset of this controversy to engage in a discussion with the city to resolve the outstanding balance.
“We had hoped to come to a resolution without filing suit and have sent several proposals for settlement, without receiving any edits to our proposed agreements,” Kennedy said in the email. “We have repeatedly offered the city the same deal other municipalities across the state have agreed to, but the city has insisted on further discounts.”
The claim filed by NRT states that “Lynn, unfortunately, like many other municipalities across the Commonwealth, has used the pandemic to take the avoidance of its obligations to a whole new level by improperly trying to shift all ongoing costs, expenses, and financial obligations under the parties’ contract onto the transportation vendors themselves.”
The claim says Lynn and other municipalities have jeopardized the availability of transportation for students returning to school and that many of the bus companies cannot sustain the burden of these costs and will be out of business.
“Through this action, NRT seeks to hold Lynn responsible for the damages it has caused NRT arising from the city’s breach of the parties’ contracts,” says the claim.
According to the claim, the School Transportation Association of Massachusetts (STAM) sent a letter to various districts that were refusing to pay, including Lynn.
The letter explained that districts were not prohibited from paying STAM members for services they were continuing to render.
The claim also states the same letter was sent to the Attorney General’s office, the Governor’s office, the Division of Local Services in the Department of Revenue, and the Executive Office for Administration and Finance (ANF).
“The Commonwealth stated that it believed that, as a matter of municipal finance law, there was no prohibition on payment to STAM members for these services,” the claim said.
In June 2020, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law that stated “school districts may lawfully pay vendors whether or not services were actually rendered due to COVID-19.” This law was ultimately extended to cover the 2021 fiscal year.
Markopoulos said it is the policy of the City Solicitor’s office to not comment on ongoing litigation, but he provided The Item with a public record from last summer that states the city’s position with respect to the payment for services.
This was a letter sent by Markopoulos to Kennedy and her co-worker, Howard Cooper, stating it was unfortunate to have received a previous letter from Kennedy and Cooper demanding Lynn pay for services NRT did not provide, saying the city is not in default.
“The contract at issue defined the services as “transportation” and not as “readiness of transportation service” or some other way as you suggest,” said Markopoulos in the letter.
Markopoulos also said he has tried to work with NRT, suggesting they provide other transportation services such as delivering subsidized meals to Lynn students, but Markopoulos said NRT was unresponsive to this request.
NRT filed the claim against Lynn this week and has not yet received a response. Markopoulos said the law department will be filing an answer to the complaint on Tuesday.
Kennedy said NRT’s contract with the city of Lynn is ongoing, and NRT still plans to drive the students in a couple of weeks when the city’s new transportation plan commences.
