Parents Up At Arms Over Brick Schools' Plan To Lay Off Bus Drivers

Brick Township parents are expressing frustration over the school district’s plan to lay off 31 full-time bus drivers for the 2015-16 school year.

Complaints about buses that are consistently late and buses not showing up at all to pick up students filled the Brick Patch Facebook page Friday morning on the article about the district’s plan.

“That’s a great solution to being short staffed, which is what I’ve been told all year when I ask why my daughter’s bus is 25 minutes late or never shows up,” Stacie Popdan Bradley wrote.

“Four weeks of school left and they ’forgot’ to schedule a bus for the kids in Lake Riv (Lake Riviera) on Montana (Drive),” wrote Dawn Gardner. Montana Drive is one of the main streets through Lake Riviera and a bus run that has been in existence for more than 30 years. “Forgot?? Seriously??” she added.

“As it is, there is a different bus driver and bus picking my kid up every morning, coming from a different direction. This is very unsettling because who knows if it is a real bus driver or some nut case who stole a school bus. Maybe I’ll just drive him myself and get a discount on those taxes I pay. Oh wait...” wrote Christen Troiano Smith.

The plan to eliminate 31 full-time drivers was announced to the transportation department Thursday by a letter from Interim Superintendent Richard Caldes. The two-paragraph letter, posted on Facebook, said the cuts were “deemed necessary,” but also said it was not an easy decision for the district to make.

>> RELATED: Brick Schools Announce Plan To Cut 31 Bus Drivers

Friday afternoon, Caldes -- who was appointed just last Friday to the interim position in the wake of the arrest of Superintendent Walter Uszenski in what authorities say was a scheme to provide day care for his grandson -- said the district took a look at the bus routes to determine where things could be made more efficient.

“The routes hadn’t been reviewed in a while,” Caldes said, though he did not know specifically when they were last reviewed. The changes that are being made will not extend them signifcantly, he said.

“The cuts were made for efficiency,” Caldes said. He said they are based on seniority, under state Civil Service Commission rules.

The plan must be approved by the state Civil Service Commission.

“These cuts are only going to create late pickups/dropoffs and uncertainty for parents who just want to get their kids safely on the bus so they can get to work,” said John T. Menshon, president of Transport Workers Union Local 225 Branch 4, which represents not only transportation workers but cafeteria workers, grounds maintenance personnel, mechanic staff, secretarial staff, and custodians in the district. “Unfortunately, there seems to be trend in this country to destroy full-time jobs with health benefits and replace them part-timers without healthcare benefits.”

The cuts won’t affect only full-time drivers, however. Under civil service rules, a person with a full-time job has the right to bump someone who is part-time but who has less seniority, meaning the impact could be greater than just 31 jobs.

Caldes said the cuts were made as part of the budget process, which began back in January. The school board on April 30 approved the 2015-16 budget, which includes a nine-10ths of a percent increase due solely to debt service. The tax levy for the general fund portion of the budget was kept flat.

One driver in the district, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the amount of money the district will save through the cuts is minimal and the impact the cuts will have -- on both the students and the families of the drivers -- will be dramatic.

“I make $14.51 per hour to transport the most precious cargo: children,” the driver said. “A garbage man makes more than I do.”

The highest salaries among drivers in the district barely crack $40,000 per year, the driver said, and most take the job for the health benefits. There are drivers with family members who have serious illnesses, children who need medications that cost upwards of $400 per month.

“There are single mothers who depend on this job for the (health) benefits,” the driver said.

“There are some places to make things more efficient,” the driver said, but the effect of combining routes will mean children riding the buses for longer times.

“You can’t have kindergartners on the bus for 45 minutes,” the driver said, because inevitably they will need to use the bathroom in that length of time. Putting 52 high school students on a bus is not only impossible, but an invitation to problems and fights, the driver said.

The result will be an exacerbation of problems that already have been multiplying as a result of drivers retiring or quitting and not being replaced. As the number of bus drivers has fallen, the drivers remaining have had to double up or even triple up on routes, resulting in children being late to school or adults being late to work because they cannot leave young children alone unsupervised at a bus stop, waiting for a bus that -- in some instances -- doesn’t arrive, the driver said.

The driver said nowhere was the problem illustrated better than Friday, where the transportation department had not only its usual absences due to drivers out on family leave and worker’s compensation, but drivers who called out sick.

Parents reported receiving multiple calls telling them buses would be late picking up students attending many of the district’s school via the Honeywell alert system.

“Pretty ironic that I just received a call that 6 buses are running 15 minutes late,” Kimberly Kopecky wrote.

The number of drivers out on Friday was fewer than the number the district is planning to lay off, and the routes were a mess, the driver said.

“Morale has been terrible,” the driver said. “This (the cuts) affects hundreds of people.”

The driver also put much of the blame on the Board of Education, saying the school board is “too involved” in the day-to-day running of the district.

“They have refused to hire new drivers to replace the ones who’ve left,” the driver said, and even when they do consider it, hiring someone new takes six to eight weeks because the board’s human resources committee insists on reviewing the candidates, the driver said.

The driver also said complaints from the board about excessive absenteeism were unfair, because the absenteeism numbers included not only people calling out sick, but those on family leave and those who were out due to worker’s compensation claims.

Parents, already upset over Uszenski’s arrest, were critical of the decision on the Brick Patch Facebook page.

“ My daughter’s bus is routinely late in the morning and the afternoon, the bus and driver are almost never the same from the morning to the afternoon. I can only imagine how much worse this is going to make it. Nothing like making the kids and parents suffer,” wrote Lisa Kelley-Mulhearn.

“Hope to see more people standing up for these drivers at the next BOE meeting. My daughter gets picked up at 910 as it is when school starts at 9. How much worse will it get down 31 people?” wrote Marjory Daub-Towey.

“After the debacle this morning with buses I can see this is going to really be a mess going forward. How about we fire all the duplicate positions for friends and family first? Diane Rossi Hart wrote.

The next Board of Education meeting is Thursday, May 25, at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Brick Township High School.