Rutherford County School Board considers buying buses to deal with expected route gaps next school year

Stock photo of school busses (Photo by Kassandre Pedro/Pexels)

Rutherford County Schools may have avoided a problematic strike by its bus contractors this month, but Director of Schools Dr. James Sullivan told school board members the underlying issue is only going to get more challenging next fall.

Rutherford County Schools does not operate its own bus system and instead hires more than 120 contractors to provide students with transportation to and from school. Previously, the county provided those drivers with insurance, but that’s not going to be the case when the fall semester starts, and potentially not at all moving forward.

At Monday’s work session, Sullivan said he expects some contractors to decline to renew their contract for the next school year because of the insurance change. He worries that those do won’t be able to pick up the slack, especially with the district adding 10 new routes next year for a new school.

“I have no way of knowing how many there is going to be. I have no way, but we have had contractors even at the courthouse when I present say that without the insurance, not necessarily the raise, but without the insurance, I don’t plan on driving. As the director, I have to provide the board options,” said Sullivan.

One option Dr. Sullivan presented board members on Monday is for the district to buy its own buses and potentially hire drivers.

Rutherford County Schools has identified 12 buses it can purchase from nearby dealers for roughly $2 million. Board members will consider approving that purchase on Thursday, but the issue doesn’t have universal support.

Zone 4 Board Member Katie Darby was one of several members who questioned how they could support buying buses when many details about how many are needed and who would drive them remain unanswered.

“I’ve been left feeling insanely conflicted about this whole thing. I think it’s an odd thing to be discussing the buses without knowing kind of where we sit,” said Darby. “We could buy these buses to fill the potential holes that are coming up, and we could end up having buses and no one to drive them because my understanding is there are other districts struggling to fill bus driver positions as well.”

The district likely won’t know for sure how many contractors are willing to renew until late May. One important factor in that will be the approval of a new contract that provides drivers with a 17 percent pay increase and a 2 percent raise, along with a $4,000 stipend for insurance. Board members are scheduled to vote on the contract on Thursday.

The association that represents 70 percent of drivers initially called the contract a “poverty wage” and threatened to strike if the district didn’t return to the bargaining table. Bus contractors later walked back the strike threat, but complaints remain that the raise and stipend won’t keep up with growing operating costs.

Dr. Sullivan and his administration told board members that they’ve heard from some bus contractors who are considering offering to sell their buses to the district instead of renewing their contract.

Rutherford County Schools currently only has a small number of buses that can transport a large number of students, including 31 activity buses that its high schools use for school bands and field trips.  Many of these are nearing their end-of-use date.

Zone 2 Board Member Stan Vaught said because of that, he believes the proposal to buy 12 busses to fill any regular route gaps next fall, only makes sense.

“We as a board have taken on transportation for this county, so we’ve got to make every preparation possible, and so buying 10 or 12 buses in my view is really not that big a deal,” said Vaught. “The worst we end up doing in this deal is replacing a bunch of old activity buses.”