Columbia school board discusses pay for school bus drivers
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia Board of Education met for the first time Monday since Gov. Mike Parson announced Missouri schools will not hold in-person classes through the rest of the school year.
Parson made the announcement on April 9.
Many schools, including Columbia Public Schools, have been using remote learning tactics including online classroom meetings and take-home work packets.
Learning resumed last week after the school district starting April 1 took a three-day pause to refocus its methods of remote learning.
The district has also found a way to keep students fed by having buses deliver meals to different locations around town during the week. Eight to ten drivers are working to deliver meals, but there are typically 210 routes for drivers to run daily during a normal school year.
The board discussed pay for school bus drivers and monitors. On the agenda was an amendment of the district's contract with Student Transportation of America, Inc., to pay bus drivers and monitors while CPS is closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During Monday's meeting several people spoke who said they were bus drivers. All of them said they did not support the amendment because they would make more money by filing for unemployment.
Several drivers said STA told them to file for unemployment when schools closed, but then paid them 25 hours per week. They said, even with the 25 hours, they would still make more on unemployment.
The school board voted against the amendment Monday night.
Under the agreement, CPS would have paid Student Transportation of America $929,343.18 for April and $760,371.70 for May.
Student Transportation of America would have then paid guaranteed hours to drivers and bus monitors through the end of the school year and refrain from laying drivers and monitors off.
The company would have offered to rehire drivers and monitors already laid off and would pay them full back pay for the time the schools were closed. The company would subtract any unemployment benefits drivers received during that time.
The school district is contractually obligated to pay 38% of the fixed costs to STA, but if the school board only paid that amount drivers would not be getting a salary during that time.
The school board looked at paying around 67% of the normal cost to run routes, in order to pay drivers and monitors a higher salary.
The board looked at if that money would have been guaranteed to go to drivers, and whether filing for unemployment would pay more for a majority of drivers.
Under the driver's collective bargaining agreement, they are guaranteed to be paid for 5 hours per day, but if they file for unemployment they will be paid for more hours.
