Jane Brown has been driving school buses in Palm Beach County for eight years, but you wouldn’t know it from her paycheck. Her hourly wage is $12.85, just 48 cents more per hour than new drivers make.
Her schedule of morning and afternoon pickups makes it difficult to find a second job. And the county’s bus compounds, where she often passes time between runs, were recently criticized by the county’s new schools superintendent as “some of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Brown says she is “trying day by day” to make the job work for her. But the schedule and the pay make it difficult, she says.
“You have men who are head of the home,” she said. “You have women who are head of the home also. It really needs to be improved.”
The county’s bus drivers have long argued that their wages are too low and their work conditions poor. But their concerns are getting more attention this year after classes began with a weeks-long school bus meltdown blamed in part on a driver shortage.
The county’s public schools started classes with about 50 fewer drivers than needed to run their routes. The shortages, combined with a botched redesign of the routes, meant huge delays for some students as many drivers were forced to double up. In the chaos, some routes were neglected entirely.
Hard to recruit drivers
Superintendent Robert Avossa has blamed low pay, shabby working conditions and poor management for the perennial driver shortages. As the school system struggles to improve bus service, he has called for a re-examination of drivers’ wages.
“We’re having a harder and harder time finding people to work for $12 an hour, given that the economy is improving and there are other options for people,” Avossa said earlier this month. “So I think we’re probably falling behind a little bit in that area.”
The starting wage for the county’s school bus drivers is $12.37 an hour. That’s more than new drivers make in Miami-Dade County and on par with Broward County, but it’s well below what they make on the Treasure Coast. It’s also $1.30 less per hour than new drivers earn at the county’s Palm Tran bus service.
District and union officials say that wage disparity prompts drivers to leave for higher paying jobs and makes it harder to recruit new ones. And the pay level condemns many long-time drivers to subsistence at or near the poverty level.
A handful of veteran drivers earn nearly $21 an hour, but most earn less than $13. The drivers’ median wage this year is $12.85 per hour, a Palm Beach Post analysis of school district salary data shows.
Less than $20,000 a year
Union officials point out that wages on that level can mean a life of poverty for drivers who are raising a family on a bus driver salary alone. Most drivers work 37.5 hours a week during the school year and earn less than $20,000 a year, a household income that puts a family of three below the federal poverty line. (Unlike many low-wage workers, school bus drivers receive health insurance and earn retirement pensions).
“The big problem here is how do we bring these workers up to a point where they have a living wage?” said Rick Smith, state chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union, which represents the school district’s bus drivers. “The drivers are kind of the most compelling story at the moment because of the churn.”
Drivers can be difficult to recruit because they need to have a commercial driver’s license and pass a physical exam. The school district now covers the costs of driver training, but the requirements nonetheless limit the candidate pool.
“It’s a challenge for us,” said Mark Mitchell, the school district’s director of compensation and employee information services. “Our goal is to be able to attract and retain quality employees. There’s typically more turnover the lower the wages of a job.”
In addition to stiff qualifications, many drivers say their split shifts lead to extraordinarily long days, a further disincentive to stay.
‘We give our life to this job’
With about 3 1/2 hours of free time between their morning and afternoon runs, many drivers say it doesn’t make financial sense for them to burn gas money driving home. Instead, many pass the time in the bus compounds’ aging break areas.
“We give our life to this job,” said Jacquy Prime, a driver for six years, who says he sometimes naps on benches between shifts at one of the compounds.
Lionel Simeus, a driver for nearly two decades, commutes from Port St. Lucie, so he says he spends his break in the compound eating a bag lunch and talking on his cell phone. Others play dominoes or watch TV.
After visiting compounds and speaking with drivers, Avossa this month singled out their conditions as a needed fix. The indoor break rooms are too small to fit all drivers comfortably, so many sit outside in the pavilions, even in the heat and rain.
“In my 20 years of experience in public education, our transportation compounds are some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Avossa said. “They lack restrooms, adequate space for drivers that are air-conditioned or heated during the winter months. It is not fair and we wonder why we cannot attract and retain top talent.”
The split shifts don’t just mean a lot of time stuck at bus compounds; they also make it difficult for drivers to find second jobs.
Muriel Pickett, a driver for 15 years, used to work two-hour stints as a nurse’s aide between her shifts. But she lost that job recently and has had trouble finding another one that fits her narrow 3 1/2-hour window.
“I’m still trying to find a nurse’s aide job,” she said, “but it’s not easy because I get off at 9:30 and I have to get back at 1 (p.m.)”
Another demoralizing aspect of the job: Drivers with three or four years of experience are paid the same as new drivers. That’s because in recent years, starting pay has been increasing at the same rate as raises for all other drivers. Drivers with nearly a decade’s experience, like Brown, make less than 50 cents more than beginners. Though everyone’s pay is slowly rising, drivers say the phenomenon devalues tenure.
Union officials and the school district will begin negotiating a new contract next month, and a reexamination of drivers’ pay is sure to be one of the discussions.
District officials say they don’t believe compound upgrades and wage increases are the only way to attract and keep more drivers, though.
Avossa has talked about the value of creating new training opportunities for drivers who want to move on to higher-paying positions within the school system, such as mechanics. He said he set up a similar program in Georgia.
“It allowed a driver to see a future,” he said. “To keep them there, we invested in them.”
Brown, the eight-year driver, said that the recent school bus problems have called more attention to the sorts of institutional flaws that drivers have complained about for years. The result, she said, may be a better understanding of her job’s challenges.
“More eyes are opening up,” she said.
Her schedule of morning and afternoon pickups makes it difficult to find a second job. And the county’s bus compounds, where she often passes time between runs, were recently criticized by the county’s new schools superintendent as “some of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Brown says she is “trying day by day” to make the job work for her. But the schedule and the pay make it difficult, she says.
“You have men who are head of the home,” she said. “You have women who are head of the home also. It really needs to be improved.”
The county’s bus drivers have long argued that their wages are too low and their work conditions poor. But their concerns are getting more attention this year after classes began with a weeks-long school bus meltdown blamed in part on a driver shortage.
The county’s public schools started classes with about 50 fewer drivers than needed to run their routes. The shortages, combined with a botched redesign of the routes, meant huge delays for some students as many drivers were forced to double up. In the chaos, some routes were neglected entirely.
Hard to recruit drivers
Superintendent Robert Avossa has blamed low pay, shabby working conditions and poor management for the perennial driver shortages. As the school system struggles to improve bus service, he has called for a re-examination of drivers’ wages.
“We’re having a harder and harder time finding people to work for $12 an hour, given that the economy is improving and there are other options for people,” Avossa said earlier this month. “So I think we’re probably falling behind a little bit in that area.”
The starting wage for the county’s school bus drivers is $12.37 an hour. That’s more than new drivers make in Miami-Dade County and on par with Broward County, but it’s well below what they make on the Treasure Coast. It’s also $1.30 less per hour than new drivers earn at the county’s Palm Tran bus service.
District and union officials say that wage disparity prompts drivers to leave for higher paying jobs and makes it harder to recruit new ones. And the pay level condemns many long-time drivers to subsistence at or near the poverty level.
A handful of veteran drivers earn nearly $21 an hour, but most earn less than $13. The drivers’ median wage this year is $12.85 per hour, a Palm Beach Post analysis of school district salary data shows.
Less than $20,000 a year
Union officials point out that wages on that level can mean a life of poverty for drivers who are raising a family on a bus driver salary alone. Most drivers work 37.5 hours a week during the school year and earn less than $20,000 a year, a household income that puts a family of three below the federal poverty line. (Unlike many low-wage workers, school bus drivers receive health insurance and earn retirement pensions).
“The big problem here is how do we bring these workers up to a point where they have a living wage?” said Rick Smith, state chief of staff for the Service Employees International Union, which represents the school district’s bus drivers. “The drivers are kind of the most compelling story at the moment because of the churn.”
Drivers can be difficult to recruit because they need to have a commercial driver’s license and pass a physical exam. The school district now covers the costs of driver training, but the requirements nonetheless limit the candidate pool.
“It’s a challenge for us,” said Mark Mitchell, the school district’s director of compensation and employee information services. “Our goal is to be able to attract and retain quality employees. There’s typically more turnover the lower the wages of a job.”
In addition to stiff qualifications, many drivers say their split shifts lead to extraordinarily long days, a further disincentive to stay.
‘We give our life to this job’
With about 3 1/2 hours of free time between their morning and afternoon runs, many drivers say it doesn’t make financial sense for them to burn gas money driving home. Instead, many pass the time in the bus compounds’ aging break areas.
“We give our life to this job,” said Jacquy Prime, a driver for six years, who says he sometimes naps on benches between shifts at one of the compounds.
Lionel Simeus, a driver for nearly two decades, commutes from Port St. Lucie, so he says he spends his break in the compound eating a bag lunch and talking on his cell phone. Others play dominoes or watch TV.
After visiting compounds and speaking with drivers, Avossa this month singled out their conditions as a needed fix. The indoor break rooms are too small to fit all drivers comfortably, so many sit outside in the pavilions, even in the heat and rain.
“In my 20 years of experience in public education, our transportation compounds are some of the worst I’ve ever seen,” Avossa said. “They lack restrooms, adequate space for drivers that are air-conditioned or heated during the winter months. It is not fair and we wonder why we cannot attract and retain top talent.”
The split shifts don’t just mean a lot of time stuck at bus compounds; they also make it difficult for drivers to find second jobs.
Muriel Pickett, a driver for 15 years, used to work two-hour stints as a nurse’s aide between her shifts. But she lost that job recently and has had trouble finding another one that fits her narrow 3 1/2-hour window.
“I’m still trying to find a nurse’s aide job,” she said, “but it’s not easy because I get off at 9:30 and I have to get back at 1 (p.m.)”
Another demoralizing aspect of the job: Drivers with three or four years of experience are paid the same as new drivers. That’s because in recent years, starting pay has been increasing at the same rate as raises for all other drivers. Drivers with nearly a decade’s experience, like Brown, make less than 50 cents more than beginners. Though everyone’s pay is slowly rising, drivers say the phenomenon devalues tenure.
Union officials and the school district will begin negotiating a new contract next month, and a reexamination of drivers’ pay is sure to be one of the discussions.
District officials say they don’t believe compound upgrades and wage increases are the only way to attract and keep more drivers, though.
Avossa has talked about the value of creating new training opportunities for drivers who want to move on to higher-paying positions within the school system, such as mechanics. He said he set up a similar program in Georgia.
“It allowed a driver to see a future,” he said. “To keep them there, we invested in them.”
Brown, the eight-year driver, said that the recent school bus problems have called more attention to the sorts of institutional flaws that drivers have complained about for years. The result, she said, may be a better understanding of her job’s challenges.
“More eyes are opening up,” she said.
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