The state Department of Labor has disclosed threatened layoffs of 832 workers at a Mount Vernon school bus yard and another 885 in Brooklyn.
Pride Transportation Services Inc. notified the state on Oct. 20 that it was permanently laying off 1,717 workers at the two sites at the end of October. The state publicized the notice on Dec. 10.
But a spokesperson for Pride Transportation’s parent company, First Student Inc., Cincinnati, stated in an email that no layoffs have been conducted in New York, there are no plans for a permanent closure, and “the company continues to operate and serve its school district partners.”
First Student did not reply to a follow-up request for elaboration.
New York’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires businesses with at least 50 full-time employes to give 90 days advance notice of a plant closing or layoffs of 25 or more people. The actions are posted publicly on the state’s WARN Act dashboard.
The Mount Vernon job site is on Edison Avenue behind Saint Paul’s Church National Historic Site, in an otherwise heavily industrialized area of the city. The location appears to be a maintenance and storage yard with room for more than 100 school buses.
The New York City Department of Education spends about $2 billion a year busing about 150,000 students, mostly by private bus companies.
Pride Transportation has received several contracts since 2008, according to a New York City Department of Education database. From 2014 through 2025, for example, it received four contracts worth about $494 million.
The bus businesses have been involved in union disputes as well as contract disputes with the school system for years, according to news accounts. Last month, the city and the bus companies approved an emergency contract extension that averted a transportation disruption.
