Chapel Hill may pay school bus drivers $20 an hour. Will that ease driver shortage?
Chapel Hill-Carrboro school bus drivers could get a minimum salary of $20 an hour as part of a series of changes designed to address a severe driver shortage.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro school administrators will recommend Tuesday that the school board immediately raise the starting salary for bus drivers by 20% to $20 an hour.
Also on Tuesday, administrators may recommend changes that would start in the 2023-24 school year such as reducing the number of bus stops, changing elementary school start times and changing magnet school bus transportation.
The district emailed families about the possible changes on Friday. The proposal comes as the district deals with a 45% driver vacancy rate that’s led daily to some bus routes not having drivers available.
Higher driver pay
In North Carolina, the state pays the base salaries for most public school employees. Last year’s state budget raised the minimum salary for school support staff, such as bus drivers, to $15 an hour.
Some school districts offer bonuses and use local funds to boost pay for drivers.
The current starting salary for Chapel Hill-Carrboro bus drivers is $16.62 an hour. District staff want the board to immediately raise it to a “local market-dominating $20/hour.”
The new starting salary would be higher than the $18.13 an hour paid by Durham Public Schools and the $17.20 an hour paid to Wake County school bus drivers. It would also be more than the $19 an hour starting salary offered by GoRaleigh and GoTriangle.
But bus drivers can use their commercial driving licenses to make more money driving commercial trucks.
It’s why there’s a statewide and national driver shortage. At the start of the school year, North Carolina superintendents estimated their districts had 1,342 bus driver vacancies. That’s out of around 14,000 school buses that run each day.
Changes in stops, school times
Higher driver pay is just one option on the table for the district. Other options that will be laid out in more detail on Tuesday include:
▪ Consolidating bus stops.
▪ Creating dual roles that combine bus driving with other positions.
▪ Partnering with Chapel Hill and Carrboro on improved biking and walking options.
▪ Splitting elementary schools into two tiers with different starting times so that the same number of buses can cover more schools each day.
▪ Changes to magnet program bus transportation.
Learn more
The open session of Tuesday’s school board meeting will begin at approximately 7 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Building, 2501 Homestead Rd., Chapel Hill.
Visit https://www.chccs.org/Page/11058 to view the meeting agenda, to find a link to watch the meeting online and to submit written public comments.
This story was originally published February 12, 2023 at 12:38 PM.
