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Drivers issue 'private'

• Dougherty school bus drivers elect representatives at a series of meetings that follow last Friday's walkout.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — A few Dougherty bus drivers on Wednesday trickled out of their scheduled meeting — the third of four — with school officials at the system bus shop.

“They’re satisfied with their pay,” said driver supervisor Leon Gray.

It was the third of four meetings scheduled since 12 drivers walked off the job Friday, refusing to drive their afternoon routes. Each group elected two representatives and communicated with school officials about a pay change that left some with less money in their paychecks.

Bus driver Susan McDonald was one of the first to leave the meeting. Her Friday paycheck was an improvement, she said. “Before, I didn’t feel like I was paid for what I was working,” she said.

A dozen drivers who protested Friday said their checks showed a pay cut. School officials have said it was an adjustment that more accurately reflected the hours drivers work. Some parents were furious their children were left behind by the protesting drivers.

McDonald, who drives a route of pre-kindergartners and kindergartners, said she also drove Southside Middle School and Westover High School bus routes Friday afternoon. “I was one of the ones that picked up the ones that got left,” she said.

Superintendent Sally Whatley and Finance Director Robert Lloyd were among those to meet with drivers whose last names began with M-S at the system shop by Turner Field Wednesday.

Whatley asked if disciplining the 12 drivers who walked out Friday was the only issue of concern in the media.

“This is far more complicated than that one isolated incident Friday,” she said.

The payroll changes were a deliberate, but “drastic” change from what the bus drivers were accustomed, she said.

“We needed to move to a fair, equitable system for our drivers,” Whatley said. “Drivers have to now be accountable for the hours that they drive.”

While meetings had been held and information provided about the changes before Friday, “the system shares some responsibility,” she said.

“Friday, we had a heightened level of frustration, particularly by 12 drivers.”

Whatley said some parents thought the bus system was about to stop completely and it frightened them.

“We had a Plan B and we quickly moved to Plan B. We didn’t have children stranded for hours and hours,” she said. “I stayed there until every child was home.”

The conduct of drivers who refused to drive Friday won’t be minimized or ignored, but their punishment, if any, will never be discussed, she said.

The system has 142 buses transporting 11,000-13,000 children every school day and 150 drivers, including a number of substitutes; plus the system has a pool of commercial-licensed drivers to draw from if the need arises, she said.

A Dougherty County School Board member who attended a transportation committee meeting Wednesday questioned the protesting drivers’ belief that they earned $18 an hour.

“We’ve changed our calculation method to that you are paid by the hour you work,” member Emily Jean McAfee said. “In the past, they (bus drivers) thought they were making $18 per hour. They never were.”

With the new accountability, she said, drivers will “at the end of the day ... make more money and... be paid more evenly.”

Board member James C. Bush said that the meetings with bus drivers and officials should clear the air.

“The superintendent is looking for fairness for everybody,” he said.

The problem, he said, “was a lack of communication.”

McAfee said she was “disappointed that we had people who decided not to take the children home. It (showed) a lack of maturity and a lack of loyalty,” she said, adding that she would leave matters of discipline up to system officials.

Staff writer Barbara Rivera Holmes contributed to this report.

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