Kansas City, MO – They could hire 20 drivers today, if they could find them, says the head of transportation for the North Kansas City School District.
Mike McQuillen says not only is his district short on drivers, he says other districts in the KC Metro are as well.
"One of the pools we used to draw from, a third of employees, were retirees that did something else in life and needed something to keep em busy, and maybe give something back to the community," says McQuillen. "And maybe because of COVID they say the risk is not worth it."
Some may also shy away from applying, he says, due to the responsibilities of the job - driving children.
In the NKC district, which covers a large portion of the Kansas City Northland, they're offering $19/hour plus healthcare and pension to be a school bus driver. McQuillen says it's easy to get more than 40-hours of work per week.
Still, he says they're coming up short finding people to get behind the wheel of the bus. And so they continue to use internal staff to make up the shortfall in drivers.
"It means we have office staff including myself driving buses, we have mechanics driving buses. We have 242 employees in transportation, we can pull from other resources," says McQuillen. "The downside is it keeps them from doing their regular job if they’re driving buses."