By Collin Breaux
How to keep a steady pool of bus drivers and whether drivers should be paid for training came up during a Washington County School Board workshop on Monday, May 13.
School Board member Cindy Johnson Brown has brought up wanting to compensate drivers after they go through a required 40 hours of training.
Washington County currently has 38 bus drivers now, including substitutes. Brown said nine more drivers are needed.
“If we have a shortage, what I’m proposing–what Wakulla (County) does–is a nice, clear incentive program to not only recruit but retain bus drivers,” said Brown, who requested a workshop be held to talk about the issue.
Transportation Specialist Dawn Spooner said the matter is a “major problem across the state.”
“I understand where y’all are going with this. Why don’t we come up with some other solutions if we’re talking about retention?” Spooner said. “I’m okay with a sign-on bonus but the main thing is there’s a lot of work that goes into this to get drivers and if we don’t have something ensuring that they’re going to stay, then where does that put us as a district? You can have them sign a contract but who’s going to go after them for a breach of contract?”
Spooner said trained drivers “get on payroll pretty quick” once they get certified.
“If I see a driver, I’m snatching it up as quick as I can,” Spooner said. “We have a lot that will say, okay, I’ll put my application in, come in, I want to be a bus driver. We’ll say, okay, let’s start the 20-hours classroom with you. They come two days and I never see them again.”
Brown said the hiring and onboarding, in addition to the training, can be cleaned up.
“If somebody comes and puts an application in and they pay for their fingerprints and background check and all of the things, you’re grabbing them and going ahead and throwing them into the class or maybe even on a bus as a monitor,” Brown said. “They’re not an employee yet. Then they go through your training and all the things like you said, not paid. If they pass, we make them a bus driver. I get all that.”
“Where I would like to see it cleaned up and identified with a clear, concise process would be if someone comes to us and they want to be a bus driver, great. Fill your application out and pay for your fingerprints and background screening,” Brown continued. “When that comes back clear, let’s give you a job and make you a Washington County employee as a bus monitor. … Let’s put you through your CDL training.”
Back pay could also be provided for training, Brown said.
“I think it’s just a nice incentive,” Brown said.
Spooner said the issue with back pay and training is everyone “goes at their own pace.”
“We do hire them as bus monitors–not out of the bat because we’re not going to hire unqualified people,” Spooner said.
Funding is not available to have a monitor on every bus, according to workshop discussion. Monitors are placed on all special needs buses due to state requirements and as needed throughout the District.
Bus driver training is a required 40-hour minimum regiment. Twenty hours of that is curriculum classroom training and eight hours minimum behind the wheel. The remaining 12 hours can be left up to the District, which Spooner said has always been used as monitoring.
“I don’t think we’ve ever trained anybody just eight hours,” Spooner said.l
Driver training also requires learning the back of the bus, how to back it up, crawling under the bus, and inspecting it.
Spooner said she is open to insight from other counties but other counties are also bigger.
Brown said there can be funds for back pay.
“We are going to get FEMA money eventually,” Brown said. “Things can be finangled.”
Spooner said she appreciated the School Board talking about recruiting bus drivers and looking for solutions.
“I just think that coming at it from the training perspective is not the solution that’s going to benefit us the most,” Spooner said. “You just have too many moving parts going on during that portion, too many doubts whether that driver’s going to stay, whether that driver’s going to show up for training, a lot of paperwork with hiring an employee for full-time. There’s a lot going on during that first process.”
GARRETT VALCOURT 
NATALIE HOLTON