Salter Back in Front of City Council Thursday

For the second time in as many months, the Salter Transportation Company has been called before the City Council’s Legal Affairs Subcommittee, this time to discuss tax issues.

Members of the council are concerned that Salter, which garages the city’s yellow school buses at 60 Pulaski St., as well as rival transportation company First Student, are not paying excise tax to the city because their vehicles are not registered in Peabody.

The subcommittee will gather to discuss the matter Thursday night prior to the regularly scheduled council meeting.

Salter, in the first year of a three-year contract to provide busing service to the city’s school children, is based in Newburyport, and has registered the fleet of buses in that community. Likewise, First Student registers its fleet of vehicles in Salem, where that company is based.

Until now, both businesses have been paying excise tax where the buses are registered, not where they are garaged, something the council is hoping to change.

“Basically the council is looking into a provision that states the excise tax must be paid where the vehicles are garaged, which would mean they would have to begin paying taxes to the city,” said City Clerk Tim Spanos. “Neither company registers their buses in the city so they have to look at it in Legal Affairs to see if there is a provision that allows that.”

Salter won the School Department’s transportation bid last summer and began housing buses on Pulaski Street just last August, but the company has already become a source of controversy  for the council and its constituents.

Representatives from Salter found themselves in front of the Legal Affairs Subcommittee in May that the buses were too loud and emitting too many exhaust fumes in the neighborhood.

Neighbors claimed that parking the buses there was a violation of zoning and council members agreed, even though First Student has been garaging buses in the same neighborhood for years. The council voted unanimously to request a cease and desist order from Building Commissioner Kevin Goggin that would force Salter to move the buses to a new location.

Although the council can make a recommendation to Goggin, it cannot force him to enforce such an order if he does not see it fit. Goggin said he looked into the situation and, ultimately, it ended up in the hands of the Zoning Board of Appeals, from which a decision should come soon.

Whatever the board decides, Goggin says he expects the matter to go to court before any resolution can be had.

“Right now, we are awaiting an answer from the board of appeals (on whether parking the buses on Pulaski Street violates zoning),” he said. “So I can’t really say much about it until I hear from them, but it is more than likely going to end up in court.”

Salter came out of nowhere to win the School Department’s transportation contract last summer and, while the company hasn’t exactly been welcomed to the neighborhood by residents or councilors, School Business Manager Dave Keniston says it has been a great addition to the city and an asset to the schools.

“I will say that this is our first year with Salter and they have been great. Very professional and excellent to work with,” he said. “They  stepped up and won the contract over the summer and they gave us a good bid and saved the city a lot of money.”