Toms River Renews $3K Incentive For New School Bus Drivers

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Regional School District has renewed a $3,000 offer to new bus drivers who are hired and stay with the district for a year.

The retention incentive has been one of the efforts Toms River has made to entice drivers to work for the school district, which is short nearly 50 drivers, between full-time positions and substitutes.

The shortage of drivers is a nationwide issue that has brewing for some time, as fewer people pursued the work because of federal requirements to get a commercial driver's license, along with specialty training to be certified to drive a passenger vehicle and a school bus.

The coronavirus pandemic has turned it into a crisis, as many districts have been faced with added retirements by older drivers who don't want to put their health at risk due to the virus. Many school bus drivers have been people who worked part-time driving students after retiring from other careers.

In Toms River, the shortage has caused problems for afterschool sports and activities, causing the rescheduling of junior varsity and freshman competitions because of a lack of buses to get teams to away games. There have been ongoing efforts to hire drivers and there have been five hired since the start of the school year, district officials said.

The bus driver shortage has affected private companies as well as public schools, and as a result they have not been a resource for schools. Interim Superintendent Stephen Genco said Toms River has tried to hire private bus companies to fill some of the needs, but the private companies have declined to bid on bus runs. Read more: Bus Driver Shortage: Toms River Forced To Reschedule Sports Games

Toms River's incentive program offers $3,000 to drivers hired by Nov. 30 who stay for at least a year and work 25 hours per week or more. The bonus is payable in two installments, at 6 months of employment and after 12 months, for anyone who has the CDL and endorsements for passengers, school buses and air brakes.

Toms River is offering both full-time and part-time positions. The full-time positions include benefits, and the district will pay to train drivers for the CDL test and endorsement tests.

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