Fox C-6 School District bus drivers no longer will be paid less than their regular hourly rate for extra duties, like driving students to field trips or athletic or club events.
Bus drivers now will be paid their regular hourly rate whenever they drive or work on the lot.
Previously, drivers earned their hourly rate only when they drove their assigned route to and from school. When they drove additional routes, they were paid the entry-level rate.
Entry-level bus drivers were paid $16.80 per hour during the 2022-2023 school year. That rate will increase to $17.65 for the 2023-2024 school year since all support staff employees received an 85-cent-per-hour increase on July 1.
The most a bus driver may earn per hour is $23.24 for the upcoming school year.
Gary Cross, director of transportation, said Fox expects to have 56 drivers for the 2023-2024 school year. He also said the district would like to hire an additional 19 drivers before classes begin on Aug. 23.
The pay increase for extra duties should help entice drivers to transport students to field trips and other activities, said Kelly Bracht, assistant superintendent of human resources.
“It will increase our drivers’ willingness to accept these extra duties, which we sometimes struggle with,” she said.
Superintendent Paul Fregeau said paying a lower rate for bus drivers to perform additional duties is unfair.
“Let’s say you are making $20 per hour as a bus driver, and you help us out and drive another route, and we say thank you by paying you the introductory rate. We cut your pay rate by about $4 per hour for helping us out? That’s just not right,” he said.
Board of Education members voted 6-0 June 20 to approve the change. President April Moeckel was absent from the meeting.
“I’m personally excited to see this,” board member Travis Lintner said before the vote. “Some of the emails we get, we have heard issues with this. It may seem like more of a cost, but I think in the long run, it will be beneficial for bus driver retention and satisfaction.”
The change also will benefit the district’s payroll department because having two rates for the same driver led to additional work and increased the risk of making errors on a driver’s paycheck, according to board documents.
“It will decrease the amount of work done by hand by our payroll department tracking all the various rates of pay for individuals and adjusting each individuals pay accordingly, thereby also reducing room for error in the amounts paid to our drivers,” Bracht said.