Regional input, stop the procurement of minibuses for students. Parents in difficulty, the protest: the reimbursement is not even enough
BELLUNO. The regional regulation for the transport of students with disabilities residing in Veneto who attend high schools and accredited vocational training centers has changed. A service that provided for the recovery of the children at home or at a collection point and their transport to school with the return home at the end of the lessons.
Ulss 1 Dolomiti, on the recommendation of the Veneto Region, in fact, will no longer launch a contract with which to assign the service as it always did until June of this year, but will reimburse families for the costs of school transport for children, a service that it must be the parents of disabled children who have to organize by signing the contract with one or more companies in the sector.
A situation that does not appeal to the rental companies with driver forced to perform a service with prices almost halved, and which also creates some inconvenience for families who both have to advance the money to the transport company to then have the reimbursement of the expense and both must find the company to rely on.
The families
“At first the situation surprised us,” say some parents of disabled children who use the service. «Also because until now the health company had always been involved in finding companies and organizing the service. Now, however, ”the families continue,“ it’s up to us to go around and find businesses. We will also have to anticipate the payments for the service which will then be reimbursed to us. But the estimates so far made to us by the rental companies exceed the sums that the Ulss intends to give us as reimbursement. And not everyone has the money to pay. In any case, “let the families know,” we have already pointed this out to the ULSS, which will soon tell us what solution it has found “.
the firms
The companies are also worried because they still do not know how many their customers will be, and also because the money that the families will give them as payment for the transport will not cover all the expenses. Until last year the service contract was worth about 200 thousand euros, that is to say it cost 0.93 euros per km per person, now, “we will have to guarantee the service with just over half the amount, But how do you balance the accounts “, asks Stefano De Poloni, administrator of Easy Project, one of the companies that over the years has won the contract for the transport of disabled people attending high schools,” and guarantee the same service with half the money? In the last year, all the sanitation obligations imposed by Covid have increased expenses: with only 100 thousand euros who will be able to guarantee them? With those sums we must guarantee the salary of the employees and the maintenance of the vehicles, in addition to sanitation ». In addition, the money to families is given only on the basis of the presence of their child in the class: but the companies object that they must still guarantee the completed path, but the income is lower. “The Region with this system is making savings on an important service,” concludes De Poloni.
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