Ann Arbor school board to vote Wednesday on countywide transportation plan
The Ann Arbor school board will vote Wednesday night on whether to join a slightly-scaled down version of a countywide transportation program to be run by the Washtenaw Intermediate School District.
Planners had originally hoped all 10 of the county’s traditional school districts would join, but say they now believe only half of those will take part in the first year.
One district - Willow Run - has pledged to take part. Ypsilanti has scheduled a board meeting Monday to discuss the issue. Other districts WISD administrators are counting on being involved are Whitmore Lake and Lincoln.
The Ann Arbor school district is considering options to save on transportation costs.
WISD officials came to a special Ann Arbor school board meeting Friday night to once again go over the plan and answer questions.
Under the terms of plan, those districts joining would lay off all of their transportation employees. The employees would then be allowed to apply for jobs at the new organization, but would not be guaranteed spots.
The new organization aims to save money by optimizing the routes buses drive and eliminating the “deadhead” miles they drive without anyone on the bus.
But WISD and Ann Arbor officials said routing for general education students would not change much from current routes in the first year of the new system, slated to begin next school year.
However, special education routes would be changed.
Work would likely begin in January to reconfigure general education routes according to each district’s desired level of services.
Savings also would be found by consolidating central office and dispatch services. The new organization plans to have central maintenance facilities in Ann Arbor and Lincoln, with other districts used for fueling and parking buses only.
The districts are counting on significant savings in personnel costs. Not all transportation employees laid off from their current jobs in their current districts would be rehired.
Those hired by the new entity would take pay cuts. For example, in Ann Arbor, the average bus driver gets paid $17 an hour, with a guaranteed minimum of four hours in the morning and afternoon of each working day. Under the new organization, the hourly rate would be between $13 and $16, depending on a driver’s experience. There would be no guaranteed minimums.
At the start, the bus drivers are likely to be non-union, but would have the option to organize.
“I have no reason not to hire your people,” said WISD Assistant Superintendent for Business Services Brian Marcel, adding he wants to keep drivers in the district they are currently working in. “I have no reason not to hire them.”
The drivers, along with any other employees hired, would remain public employees and be in the state public employee retiree system.
WISD officials shared a copy of a recommendation from the planning committee that would set salaries for the management team, including an $115,000 a year salary for the director. But Marcel said that's higher than WISD’s scale for directors, and that salary would likely range from $100,000 to $110,000.
The planning team recommended bus driver trainers/supervisors make about $49,000 a year in salary. However, Marcel said those positions would supervise about 50 people, and in the WISD’s salary scale, those type of positions normally are paid around $60,000.
Management team positions have been posted, and interviews are slated to begin shortly. The rest of the positions are expected to be posted later this month.
Each district would sell its buses to the WISD for $1. If a district pulled out of the group, the buses would be sold back to it for $1.
Not everyone is a fan of the plan.
Richard Miller, an Ann Arbor school district bus driver, has spoken against the plan at several board meetings. He did so again Friday night.
“It’s futile for me to be here tonight,” he said. “This strategy is already taking its toll (on bus driver morale). Drivers are already leaving for other opportunities.
“Don’t think you can purchase at the dollar store the type of workforce you claim to value.”
David Jesse covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at davidjesse@annarbor.com or at 734-623-2534.
Comments
AnneB
Fri, Jun 11, 2010 : 3:34 p.m.
I would be for it if the districts would administrate themselves AND if the districts would maintain current wages and benefits. Consolidation would still save money if the above criteria were met. This is really 'privatization' that is being slipped in under the radar. Let me tell you that privatization & consolidation of substitutes has been terrible. Central office will tell you it is great. But I challenge someone to conduct a survey of building administrators and classroom teachers. It will paint a different and sometimes scary story. When the WISD privatized subs, some of the best subs, who were working because they wanted to give back to their districts and communities, left. There are still some very good subs. Most are barely competent and some are dangerous. I have seen subs who have struck students, blocked students from leaving the room, screamed and belittled student. I know of a sub who refused to allow students in wet clothing (from getting caught in rain at recess) to go to the office to call home or to get dry clothes. I have seen classrooms left alone, unattended by subs who left the building without notifying the office. One sub was discovered by building administration to be a felon after the sub exhibited some strange behavior. Driving a bus can be more stressful than substituting in the classroom. It is already difficult to find competent bus drivers. Now an outside company will choose who is charge of our children. Thankfully, my child walks to school. I would not and will not allow my child to ride a school bus driven by a privately hired company unless there are parents or teachers on the bus to supervise the driver. I feel duped into my initial approval of the consolidation. Consolidation - yes. Privatization and Poverty - NO!!!
proudparent
Mon, Jun 7, 2010 : 6:18 p.m.
Isnt the district trying to save money? Why is the diectors position 115k, and the supervisors 60k? While the drivers who are actually doing the driving job, 25k. And they want the drivers to take a pay cut, and pay outrageous amounts for insurance! People dont realize what kind of patients and focus this job requires. I see the district is chopping all the lowest wages before going for what could really save more money first. (administrators,directors,supervisors) I tell them good luck with trying to find drivers that are as qualified as the ones they have.
jns131
Sun, Jun 6, 2010 : 7:02 p.m.
Malorie? I am only the messenger. I just posted what I remember and posted it here for reference only. I never said it was working. I can't wait until ours starts driving. Unless I am on lay off, then I won't even have to worry about getting her to a bus. I will drive her myself. I will not put her on a bus with a driver I do not know. I do know the drivers in Ann Arbor and know I trust them with her life. Nuff said.
M.
Sun, Jun 6, 2010 : 12:23 p.m.
YpsiLivin, Steven - I pay taxes. I have a daughter who will be entering YPSD for the first time this fall in 1st grade. I am 24 and financial stability is not something I have. I would no doubt sacrifice what I could to pay a fee for my daughter to be able to get to school (I have no car and I'm not letting my 5 year old walk miles to school), but how much are we talking? YpsiLivin's suggestion of a sliding scale is the only humane thing to do if pay-to-ride was implemented. jns - Your link ( http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/23/the_fees_for_the_bus_go_up_and_up/ ) does provide information on pay-to-ride and how it is working in Massachusetts. After reading the article, I see IT IS NOT working.
Beth
Sun, Jun 6, 2010 : 12:14 p.m.
I would be happy to pay a fee to cover my children riding the bus, especially if it would preserve jobs for bus drivers. Maybe a sliding fee scale based on income? Or number of children riding, or distance from school, or????
YpsiLivin
Sun, Jun 6, 2010 : 7:16 a.m.
@ Steven Harper Piziks, Poverty may be a convenient dodge for the sake of your argument, but it probably doesn't apply to most students who ride the buses. The solution is simple; implement a sliding scale of fees. Pay the actual cost of transporting your kid around, or pay what you can to defray the cost. At the end of the day, however, the law doesn't require school districts to provide transportation to any student except those designated as special education students. Transportation is a very expensive voluntary cost, and under the fixed-dollar per-pupil model of school funding, the only way to pay the rising costs of school transportation is to take money away from the classroom. Are you suggesting that schools should cut in the classroom to preserve the free school bus ride?
DonaldTheUUGeek
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 11:22 p.m.
This is NOT privatization of the bus system! It's the consolidation of many educational bus systems into a single one being run by another publicly funded educational system that already does quite a lot of work with the schools involved.
jns131
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 8:45 p.m.
I knew I heard this someone where. Massachusetts charges parents a fee for children to ride the bus. Those that can pay do, others either walk or they are driven to school by their parents. Here is the link to what is mentioned here. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/23/the_fees_for_the_bus_go_up_and_up/
Steven Harper Piziks
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 1:38 p.m.
@YpsiLivin: Sure, bill parents for school busing. That way, we can keep all those messy, inconvenient poor families out of the public schools. Unequal access for all!
YpsiLivin
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 12:58 p.m.
Every dollar spent on transportation is a dollar taken away from the classroom. The state only requires transportation for special education students. For everyone else, transportation is an expense that school districts voluntarily adopted. How much more money could be spent on classroom services if it weren't being diverted to operate what amounts to a private transportation fleet? Transportation should be operated on a cost-recovery basis. If you want to put your kid on the school bus, you should be paying a bill for that service. An added benefit of a pay-to-ride approach is that if parents paid for the transportation, they'd have a bigger say in how the system gets run.
Me Next
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 12:15 p.m.
Privatize this service to parents of school age children. Bus drivers are not public employees. This ignores the fact that there is no Right to Transportation - just the opportunity to be exposed to the 3 Rs. Not all children have a Right to transportation so it's not a public service that must be open to all to be legitimate tax expenditure. The "deadhead miles" will not go away & the waste will continue. This just changes who gets the tax money (unlawful money at that) & who has access to the children. If politicians won't privatize the service to "favored group" then let there be a consumer tax on use. Special Ed child should not be isolated from the area they live in. Dhhs already contributes to private vehicles for Special needs. Those special equipped private vehicles are for the child not the parent - double taxing for the same child. For those that have a "REAL" need of transportation, it should be left to the locality to weigh the financial benefit of renting another localities service to enter their jurisdiction. Where-ever taxes are concerned there is never savings, just bigger problems to demand more taxes. Education must go back to it's original form. As a community grows in children the parents pay for teachers & principle; everything else is voted on by local property owners for the spending of THEIR school taxes they they may or may not enjoy personally. Rule of Real Law.
Harry G. Bentz
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 12:07 p.m.
It is a fact that we have a budget crisis and we have to save money. It would be nice to see ALL District employees share the burden, that way there would be a sense of fairness and we could feel good about giving our portion of the solution. My solution would be to go through the entire administration and cut ALL salaries by 10-20% through attrition: cut their guaranteed 40-hr work week down to 30 or 35 hrs. Make THEM do their work in less time. School bus drivers are part time employees already making the least yearly totals of most of all district employees. Their work day usually spans 11 hours and over half of the drivers don't get pay for holidays and are not offered work for the summer (no unemployment either). All of this for a job that currently offers 4 to 6 hrs. of work per day! How do you save money by taking it out of marginal employees? Health care? The drivers hired since 2004 pay extremely high premiums already. With the proposed change, ALL drivers will face a huge increase in health care premium contribution. Asking for higher productivity during work hours is a fact of modern business planning. Why hasn't this been done before? Could it be there was no mandate from the Administration? The plan includes installing GPS in every bus. The same thing could be done by buying three units from Cabella's and secretly putting them in buses to monitor daily usage. Even studying the data from three units would require hours of review by management or routing to decipher why a bus took a certain deviation from a route (usually because of not needing to make a stop for a child not on the bus). The only thing consolidation will accomplish is to create a new layer of distance between the Administration and School Board and the parents they serve. After all there will be an increase of complaints because of routing decisions made by a new set of criteria: Kids could be walking out of their cul-du-sac to major roadways to catch their bus. Kids could be required to cross major highways to catch the bus on the other side going the other way that currently turns around to make it door side. Complaints will probably be more efficiently handled by using email rather than talking on a telephone to a real person who currently cares. The perception of customer service will likely fall, the frustration level will increase and there will be fewer people to listen to your complaint. "Yez gets what yez pays forz!!"
Basic Bob
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 10:50 a.m.
"They break up fights, they stop fights before they happen, they deal with conflicts at the bus stops" They didn't last September on North Maple. Two AAPS buses drove away as the conflict they didn't stop escalated into a fistfight. But they did call the police.
stunhsif
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 10:43 a.m.
Quit wasting time and do it.
jns131
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 10:40 a.m.
I am one of these people that will be affected by the cuts. I am now looking at my supervisors who have been here for X amount of years and now have to reapply for their jobs with no guarantee that they will be rehired as supervisors in September. They care about what happens to the drivers, the children and the buses. They also make sure we get a minimum of 5 weeks of training to become a successful bus driver. Unlike Willow Run and others in our county who get less then a week? Very scary to think of a driver getting a weeks worth of training, getting qualified and then out on the road they go? I hate to say it, I see Central Academy bus drivers on their cell phones, highly illegal, driving buses with children on them. I have been cut off by them and yet they drive? They are the private drivers you will get driving your children? Now AAPS wants to lay us off, 100% and not be expected to be rehired? Even if I reapply? I love my job but right now I am scared to think that even if we have to reapply, we won't get rehired? I am also worried about the drivers that will come in to do my job. I really don't think WISD and AAPS has thought this thru. I am more worried about the children who will be driven by an inexperienced driver then one who has had the training by one of our wonderful trainers in the 5 or more weeks it takes to train. Trust you me, driving one of those things is scary when you first take it out for a spin. After 4 years I still look at 40 feet of steel and say to myself, I drive that? Wow. Bottom line? Directors should making half of what is proposed. Supervisors? Maybe $10,000 less? I don't even make what they are proposing. The emergency meeting called by the board on June 4 was to put fear into those who know they either need to find a new job or reapply knowing that WISD is going to pick and choose the drivers they want to hire. Parents? I really hope you don't see your driver texting or on their cell phone in September. Because it won't be a highly qualified Ann Arbor Public School bus driver behind the wheel.
M.
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 10:22 a.m.
proudparent - Is it possible that the current *average* is 17, but the starting pay is 15? I agree with Beth. I want to know how this is actually going to effect routes, and the kids. I don't personally care as much about all of these details as much as what it means for my daughter and I who will be in YPSD for the first time (she will be a first grader in the fall). A2.com staff please answer some questions for us? Would there be assigned routes for drivers with the SAME DRIVER on the same route each day? Someone implied drivers will rotate routes - this scares me. How long will the average route take from leaving a school to dropping the last student off at home (longer, shorter)?
Beth
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 9:46 a.m.
I am still awaiting word from AAPS on how this would actually affect the bus routes. I see in this article that the routes would be very similar next year, but what about after that? My young children get on the bus half an hour before school starts now, and I would be very upset to see their bus riding time lengthen, or see them have to walk any further to a bus stop when they're already getting out there at 8am. I know their bus driver knows them and can capably handle any incidents that arise - bus breakdown, fights, vandalism, all have happened this year - and I would hate to see her replaced with a series of new drivers every day who don't know the children. I already pick my children up at the end of the day because they're tired and hungry and don't want to wait another half-hour until the bus gets them home - I would hate to have to drive them in the morning as well, but I wonder if I might have to if this plan goes through?
proudparent
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 9:44 a.m.
The article has some false facts. The average pay is not $17, more like 15, and dont be confused when you read the "4 hours in the morning and afternoon", it really means "4 hrs. for the whole day". Which means drivers are making less than 23,000 a year. On top of that, 4500 a year for insurance, bringing my take home 18,000 a year. Thats poverty by numbers if im not mistaken.
DonBee
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 9:02 a.m.
My first priority is to see that the classrooms have what they need. My second is a safe day from start to finish for children. When I look at the budget for AAPS vs Plymouth-Canton, the one area that really stands out is the cost of Principals and other administration. It is difficult in the current published documents to get a complete picture of the cost of this piece from what is on the AAPS site, but there is a state filing that shows that AAPS spends about 2x what Plymouth-Canton does per student. There is probably several million dollars that could be re-allocated if this area was "right-sized". I would prefer to see cuts there to areas where students interact on a daily basis. So bus drivers and Custodians, teachers, teachers aids, etc. should be the last place to cut. But, since parents get up in arms over cuts in these areas, and are more likely to vote yes on the next millage, guess where the cuts are focused? One good thing about a county wide system is that the children who are part of the schools of choice should have an easier time getting to school on the bus, rather than having the parents drive them. They may spend longer on a bus to do it, but there may be an option. Another good thing I hope is the 7 buses that pass my house each morning will be reduced. Saving fuel and carbon and.... It is interesting that this was passed off as efficiency and now we find out that it is a wage and hour reduction for the bus drivers.
Lisa Starrfield
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 8:59 a.m.
This is not right. Our students spend a significant time on their buses and when there is a problem, we need an experienced bus driver to deal with it. It is more than just driving around picking up kids. They break up fights, they stop fights before they happen, they deal with conflicts at the bus stops, they deal with sick kids and more. Shame.
Bones
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 8:49 a.m.
I disagree with this idea. The people who are driving the kids now are solid upstanding individuals. They have proven themselves to be highly competent and valuable asset's to our communities. I personally do not wish to see these people lose their jobs so that some over paid bureaucrat can keep that fat check while killing off decent wage jobs done by skilled professionals. We all know that the top echelon's will not take pay cuts. And by hiring lower wage drivers they will not have to pay health insurance and decent wages. Which in turn cuts down on tax revenue. And the safety of the children. You get what you pay for. If you want substandard service with your kids lives. Please feel free to push for this to happen. As for me. Who does not even have kids. I will keep paying my taxes and prefer that the children have the best service available.
Dr. I. Emsayin
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 8:04 a.m.
Ann Arbor Public School parents and students do not realize what poor service is because the district has worked hard to provide good service. This includes custodial service and transportation. When a student's bus ride to school is unfavorable, and this can happen because of poor bus discipline, unfriendly bus drivers, etc., then the student can have a bad day at school, fear getting on the bus again, and in some cases (not rare), school phobia can occur. Custodians who know and care about a school are equally important to the morale of a school. Communication between director, supervisor and personnel is important, and the further it gets from point of service, the more difficult it is to manage.
Carole
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 7:34 a.m.
Many departments within the AAPS make an important impact on the students that attend the public schools. Providing a safe and secure trip to school via the school bus is extremely important in that it sets the tone for the day -- the children arrive in good spirits and settle in allowing the teachers to do their job. Our bus drivers should be commended for doing a great job in light of the fact they usually have a fair number of children on the bus at all ages, and especially during the winter months when the roads can be difficult to traverse -- no department within the AAPS should be privatized --
local
Sat, Jun 5, 2010 : 6:51 a.m.
Seems to me that Ann Arbor Public Schools are going in reverse on many of the projected cuts they thought they needed to balance the budget for years to come. Does the district not need to cut 20 million? If that is still the number they need to cut, this seems like a given. They stated in earlier forums that it would save money to consolidate, so do it. As an Ann Arbor parent I would rather see us save money here, then by cutting teachers and having high class sizes. I realize that transportation is important, but those drivers aren't teaching reading, writing, and mathematics. Just one persons opinion!