School District to Use Contract Bus Drivers

Orange Unified School District students boarding buses this summer and fall will be chauffeured by contract drivers instead of district employees.

The district and union officials have agreed on terms under which a bus contractor will take over driver duties beginning in late June.

The seven-member school board, which voted in December to privatize transportation services, late last week approved a settlement for the 65 drivers who will lose their jobs.

Under the agreement, drivers will be offered buyouts or retirement packages based on years of service, and officials will try to place them in open jobs within the school district.

The settlements could cost the district as much as $155,000, officials said.

The terms were “the best we could do under the circumstances,” said Barbara Noble, president of the district’s chapter of the California School Employees Assn.

Some training is also available, but Assistant Supt. Malcolm Seheult said that “there are no guarantees” that drivers will find other positions in the district.

The school board voted last year to privatize the troubled bus department, which typically runs from $600,000 to $1 million over budget because its vehicles are old and require costly maintenance.

Officials decided to improve the bus fleet but contract for drivers, which they projected would save the district more than $200,000 a year.

Representatives of Santa Barbara Transportation Corp., which won the contract to provide drivers, will interview district drivers this week, Noble said, for positions with the contractor.

Some of the drivers who will likely be displaced said they have worked for contractors before and were not satisfied with such areas as the benefits offered, Noble said.