FARMINGTON – The Regional School Unit 9 school board received an update from the Operations Committee Tuesday, discussing the district’s struggles in hiring bus drivers and custodians.
Director Jeff Harris of New Sharon reported from the committee that RSU 9 was finding it difficult to keep driver and custodial positions filled. As a result, Harris and school officials said, some custodial duties were going undone on a regular basis in order to staff buses. RSU 9 hires people capable of serving both custodians and bus drivers.
“Some days, we’re struggling with how to get the kids to school,” Harris said.
One issue was the requirement that custodians also be able to operate buses, Harris said, in some cases limiting the pool of applicants. Another is the large discrepancy in pay for those positions between RSU 9 and surrounding districts. Those staffers make $13-plus per hour in RSU 9, per the terms of their new, three-year contract, while those same positions are paid $17 or $18 per hour in surrounding districts.
Superintendent Tina Meserve agreed that the pay discrepancy was a challenge for the district. Small annual increases did not close that regional pay gap if every district was providing them, Meserve noted, adding that there was a state and national shortage of bus drivers that created further demand.
“That’s a challenge that I think we need to untangle in the future,” Meserve said, adding that an employee was unlikely to stay with RSU 9 if they could drive 15 minutes and get paid an additional $4 per hour.
Meserve said that one issue was that the district had signed a new contract with those staffers in July, making further adjustments more complicated.
In other business, the board approved the dissolution of five policies, including one that limited substitute pay. The Arrangement for Professional Staff Substitutes policy limited substitute pay to $85 per day unless the substitute had a teaching certificate in the subject they were subbing. Meserve said that this was unlikely – people maintaining their certificates are generally teaching full-time and therefore unavailable – and it limited the district’s ability to hire long-term substitutes for specialized positions, such as science teachers. In some cases, administrators noted, such substitutes were utilized to fill positions for which no suitable candidates were hired.
Meserve suggested that instead of a policy, she report to the board on substitute pay as part of the budget process.
While administrators are already working on department needs, budget workshops will begin on Jan. 29.
