School bus drivers, board at odds on how to save money

PRINCETON — The Mercer County Board of Education and at least three of its bus drivers are at odds.

Drivers Rachel Pitcher (Athens-PikeView), Ricky Farley (Athens-PikeView), and Michael Dinger (Montcalm) continue to maintain that the Mercer County Board of Education would save money by assigning extra-duty runs through a system of seniority.

An added motivation for drivers with seniority is that their retirement funds are based upon what they earn during the last five years of their time with the Mercer County Board of Education.

Extra-duty runs are those that are in addition to the regular route of the driver in question. These include field trips, away games, trips to the Mercer County Technical Education Center and job shadowing pickups and drop-offs.

“For a [Mercer County Technical Education Center] run, I would be paid a flat fee of $15,” Dinger said.

Mercer County Schools Director of Transportation and Safety Fred Scott disagreed that the only thing the drivers would be paid was $15.

Scott said, “When a driver is paid for one of the extra-duty runs, they accumulate hours, too.”

In an example Scott provided, a bus driver is assigned around 25 hours for his or her regular route. This is paid through a daily rate and includes time built in for pre-route inspections, fueling and bus maintenance. As the driver takes runs to the Mercer County Technical Education Center, they are paid $15 and add the hours.

If that same driver were to accept an extra-curricular trip, like a Princeton basketball game that takes place in the Kanawha Valley, the driver is paid from the time they leave until when they return, at one-seventh of their daily rate per hour.

“The driver will be paid while they sit in the stands and watch the game,” Scott said. “They’re not driving, but they’re still getting paid.”

After that driver hits the 40-hour mark, the pay rate increases to 3/14 of their daily rate. Thus in Scott’s view, it saves the taxpayer money to avoid the accumulation of overtime.

A few years ago, the Mercer County Board of Education saw another problem with the extra-duty runs. Some of those, runs to the Mercer County Technical Education Center and job shadowing pickups, usually occur during the time that the regular drivers are making their normal runs.

The Board members then initiated a flex-run driver’s position to handle those runs that regular drivers couldn’t get to. As time passed, more runs were added to the flex-run drivers’ assignments.

“We all know what the flex-run drivers are there for,” Dinger said. “They’re trying to go around seniority.”

Farley explained that extra-duty assignments are sent out to the drivers via an automated server. The system begins by calling the most senior driver in the area of where the extra-duty assignment begins that hasn’t taken such a trip yet and works its way down the list of drivers.

If the extra-duty runs are added to the flex-run drivers’ assignments, the runs are not placed into the server for drivers to accept or reject.

Scott disputed this as well.

“Seniority is very important,” Scott said. “I don’t want to act like it’s not, but we’ve got a responsibility to the taxpayers to be as efficient as we possibly can.”

In the drivers’ view, the efficiency of the flex-run drivers was questionable. Pitcher said that a new bus that the board would purchase for the flex-run drivers eliminated the savings.

Superintendent Deborah Akers disagreed. When Pitcher and Farley approached the Board of Education with the idea of removing some of the runs assigned to the flex-run drivers, Akers said she worked with Scott on the issue. In her view at that time, the school system could save money by adding an additional flex-run driver.

Pitcher and Farley also reported other issues resulting from their decision to approach the board of education about their idea to remove runs from the flex-run drivers. Pitcher reported that she and several other drivers had asked the board of education for a place to meet to discuss the issues that they were having.

“All we want is a place to meet and discuss some of the issues that we’re having,” Pitcher said. “Sometimes, if we’re in different areas, we don’t see each other.”

Akers confirmed that representatives including Pitcher and Farley had approached her about meeting once a month to discuss issues related to transportation. Akers added that the drivers had asked to meet with her and not the director of transportation once a month.

“There are already mechanisms in place to handle those types of issues,” Akers added by phone Tuesday afternoon. “I meet with the SSPA once a month, and that includes a representative from the bus operators. So, there’s that channel.”

Akers said she was also unsure how many bus drivers the people that had met with her represented. Because of this she was reluctant to meet with them and potentially set internal policies based on their recommendations.

— Contact Matt Christian at mchristian@ptonline.net.

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