LOWELL — Local bus transportation company NRT Bus Inc. is suing the City of Lowell for what it contends is failing to pay for services rendered during the last part of the 2019-2020 school year.
In July, NRT filed a lawsuit against the city claiming the city owes nearly $2 million for services rendered during the pandemic.
In the complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, NRT claims the city stopped paying in March “without justification.”
Based in North Reading with locations across the state including in Lowell, Chelmsford and Dracut, NRT has been providing bus transportation for the Lowell Public Schools since 2004, according to NRT CEO John McCarthy.
The city typically pays NRT in 10 installments over the course of the year. Those payments stopped in March after Gov. Charlie Baker closed schools in response to the pandemic, McCarthy said.
Though schools were closed, McCarthy said bus companies were instructed to be ready in case schools reopened. Remaining ready to provide transport meant keeping on bus drivers and paying for behind the scenes operations such as bus maintenance, McCarthy said.
He compared the operations of a transportation company to that of a restaurant.
“We know that when the waitress comes out with the food we know she wasn’t making it, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes other than that,” McCarthy said.
In its lawsuit, NRT claims that under its contract with Lowell, the city owes NRT for the services required to be ready to transport students in the event schools reopened.
“Not only did NRT continue to provide these services because it was contractually obligated to do so, but NRT also had to continue to provide these services in order to remain ready to transport children as soon as schools opened so that it would be in a position to perform the transportation services required by the Agreement,” the complaint read.
According to the complaint, under the contract the city owes nearly $2.5 million but NRT applied a 22% “COVID-19 discount” which totaled around $2 million.
According to McCarthy, when the 2019-2020 school year started NRT was in the last year of its three-year contract with the city.
The complaint states that the city missed the June 30, 2020 deadline to extend the contract for a fourth year and then “attempted, illogically and improperly, to extend its previously existing contract with NRT for another year by claiming to do so after the parties’ contract had already expired.”
According to McCarthy, NRT and the city have since come to an agreement for the current school year, where the city agreed to pay NRT going forward even if something “went awry.”
“We’ve been able to resolve any issues going forward — it’s the issue in the rear that we filed this complaint over,” McCarthy said.
A spokesperson from the city’s Law Department said the city does not think the lawsuit is valid. The spokesperson added that the city feels it handled the contract with NRT legally and ethically.
Alycia Kennedy, one of the attorneys representing NRT in the case, said the city is misreading its contract with NRT.
“It (NRT) did everything that it was required to do under the contract and now the city is refusing to hold up its end of the bargain,” said Kennedy. “I think the city’s position is because no transportation occurred no money is owed, but that is an incorrect reading of the contract.”
The city has until Oct. 14 to respond to the complaint.
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School bus company sues Lowell for not paying for services rendered - Lowell Sun
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