It shouldn’t take 20 seconds, much less 20 business days, for the Greater Amsterdam School District to release documents related to a board-approved three-year transportation contract that will cost taxpayers thousands of dollars.

But that’s how the district responded to a recent Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request from this newspaper seeking copies of all proposals submitted to the district. And it’s just not right.

The school board on Feb. 12 voted 5-0, with one abstention, to abandon the district’s current transportation company, Brown Transportation, and enter into a three-year contract with another company, First Student Transportation (FST).

Before the vote, district school officials provided a summary of the terms of the FST proposal and the benefits to the district.

But the school board did not release either proposal prior to its vote that would have allowed residents to compare the two proposals and offer their views. And it did not release the bid amounts — leaving taxpayers in the dark about exactly what each proposal might cost them.

The school board should have and could have released both bid proposals prior to its vote.

As the proposals were complete documents and there was no other opportunity for a competitor to come in and offer a better deal after the bid deadline had passed, district officials had no........

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