MCSD board debates bus driver incentives again — this time with official proposal

Last month, while rejecting a controversial proposal to address complaints about overcrowded and late buses, a majority of the Muscogee County School Board instead asked the administration to come back the following month with a more comprehensive recommendation, allowing representatives more time to consider options.

That day arrived Monday, during the board’s monthly work session, when the administration presented its recommendation — and another board member presented another proposal.

The original proposal that started this debate came from representatives John Thomas of District 2 and Frank Myers of District 8, the nine-member board’s most outspoken critics of the administration. They want the Muscogee County School District to raise the minimum pay for bus drivers to $17 per hour. That’s an increase of 16 percent from the current rate of $14.66 per hour.

The defeated Thomas/Myers proposal also calls for bus drivers to receive a $1 raise per year for each year of service in the district, capped at $22 per hour, a $500 sign-on bonus for each driver after six months of service and an additional $500 retention bonus on the one-year anniversary of their hiring.

Their proposal failed in a 2-6-1 vote. Myers and Thomas were the lone yes votes. Vanessa Jackson of District 3 abstained.

Fast-forward to Monday, when Jackson presented her proposal and MCSD human resources chief Kathy Tessin presented the administration’s recommendation.

Jackson’s proposal is similar to the Thomas/Myers version, and her research says raising MCSD’s starting bus driver salary to $17 per hour would be the highest for an entry-level school bus driver in the state. The difference is that her proposal increases current bus driver salaries in stages, maxing out at $21.69 per hour with 10 years of service.

Other additions in Jackson’s proposal are:

▪ Bonuses for safe driving, along with “How’s My Driving” stickers on buses and a toll-free number for folks to call.

▪ Uniforms for all MCSD bus drivers.

“Students may be easier to control when the driver looks authoritative,” Jackson wrote. “With the logo on the uniform, the driver can show their school and/or district pride.”

▪ Bus monitors employed on each bus.

“This will allow the driver to stay focused on his/her driving,” Jackson wrote. “The monitor will control the discipline on the bus. Now there can be assigned seats on each bus because the monitor will make sure that each student is in his/her correct seat. Now when something is left on the bus or if something illegal is found/left on the bus the monitor knows who is assigned to that seat.”

MCSD has 45 monitors spread among 215 regular buses and all 12 special-ed buses, Tessin said. Adding monitors on all buses would cost $4,334,111 this fiscal year, she said, and the total cost for implementing all of Jackson’s proposal would be $5,618,660.

So the administration’s recommendation calls for adding 24 bus monitors ($458,233) and referral bonuses and incentives ($71,000) but no salary schedule increase for a total impact on this year’s budget of $529,233.

Tessin’s presentation listed the hourly wages for other MCSD positions with critical shortages: $16.97 for diesel bus mechanics, $16.16 for HVAC technicians, electricians and field technology specialists, $15.39 for plumbers, $14.66 for behavior technicians and $13.96 for special-education paraprofessionals and school secretaries.

During last month’s work session, Tessin estimated it would cost approximately $300,000 per year to implement the Thomas/Myers proposal. She presented the board with an overview of bus driver pay history and compared the current rates to other districts in the state.

In the past four years, the rate for entry-level bus drivers in MCSD has increased by 9.5 percent while the rate for all other non-maintenance support personnel has increased between 3.5 percent and 5 percent.

Here are the other entry-level bus driver rates Tessin showed the board: Bibb County (Macon) $17.48, Atlanta $17, Fulton County $16.48, Chatham County (Savannah) $15.17 and Columbus Consolidated Government (Metra) $15.15.

District 6 representative Mark Cantrell noted MCSD’s entry-level bus drivers are paid less than all of them. Tessin noted she doesn’t know whether those organizations match MCSD by providing their bus drivers with benefits such as insurance and disability. Thomas noted, “You can’t eat benefits.”

MCSD regular-education bus drivers can earn as much as $18.56 per hour with 30 years of experience and a commercial driver’s license. The rate for special-education bus drivers ranges from $16.16 to $20.47.

Out of MCSD’s 217 bus drivers, Tessin said, 62 of them already earn at least $17 per hour. MCSD had 17 bus driver vacancies last month, and that’s down to five now, Tessin said.

Monday, she added other salary comparisons for school bus drivers to MCSD’s range of $14.66/$16.39 to $18.56 for regular buses and $16.16/$18.07 to $20.47 for special-education buses, noting other districts didn’t list extra pay for driving a special-education bus: Troup County $14.67 to $18.84, Chattahoochee County $13.68 to $17.06 and Phenix City $15.79 to $17.13.

The MCSD administration’s recommendation calls for:

▪ $300 referral bonus for a candidate without a commercial driver’s license who completes training and works full time for six months.

▪ $500 referral bonus for a candidate with a CDL who completes training and works full time for six months.

▪ Add 12 bus monitors for special-education routes.

▪ Add 12 floating monitors for higher incident regular routes, moving the monitors as issues are resolved.

▪ Establish an accident avoidance performance incentive. Provide team bonus to all members of the zone that has the lowest number of accidents, $200 for lowest number of incidents and $300 if that number is zero. Providing this bonus for teams instead of individuals promotes cooperation among the drivers to support safe driving, Tessin said.

▪ Establish an enterprise fund for bus driver apparel and additional recognition. Revenue would come from recycled oil, scrap metal and stop-arm camera fines.

▪ Increasing pay for only bus drivers would add to the district’s salary compression and reduce incentive for bus drivers to move to other positions, Tessin said.

District 7 representative Cathy Williams said the transportation department has done “an amazing job” addressing the issues that came from approximately 3,000 additional students riding buses this year. MCSD finished last school year with approximately 18,000 bus riders out of a total enrollment of 31,569.

District 1 representative Pat Hugley Green balked at Jackson’s proposal. Green said such an expensive change should be considered when the annual budget is being formulated, not in the middle of the fiscal year, and increasing the salaries for only bus drivers now wouldn’t be “balanced, fair and equitable for all of our employees.”

Jackson countered, “Doing nothing is not an option.”

Williams cautioned that having Jackson’s proposal and the administration’s recommendation on the agenda at the same time could create a conflict if the board approved both of them during next Monday’s meeting.

Thoams and Jackson emphasized that, as of Monday morning, the agenda still didn’t include the administration’s recommendation, so Jackson submitted her proposal to fill the gap.

After further discussion, Jackson agreed to withdraw her proposal. Thomas, however, noted her proposal wasn’t for naught. He said the administration’s recommendation included uniforms for bus drivers and adding bus monitors only after Jackson submitted her proposal.

Mark Rice, 706-576-6272, @MarkRiceLE.

This story was originally published October 8, 2018 at 9:32 PM.