The easiest way to solve the school bus driver shortage? 'Pay them more,' says region's bus boss

The head of the non-profit corporation that organizes school buses for the London region told trustees at a Tuesday meeting of the Thames Valley District School Board the only way to solve an acute shortage of bus drivers is to pay them more. 

Like similar organizations across North America, Student Transportation Services (STS), which marshals school buses in the London region, has been dealing with a shortage of drivers for years, but the problem became more acute when the COVID-19 pandemic scared away workers who were circumspect about close interaction with children.

Since then, the shortages have affected families on a daily basis, said STS chief executive Ryan Readings, who told trustees at a public meeting Tuesday that his organization has never had to cancel more than 11 routes in a day — or one per cent of its 1,100 total routes.

When asked by trustees about the easiest to effectively recruit and retain school bus drivers to ease the pressure on families, Readings said it ultimately comes down to money. 

'Pay them more,' says region's school bus czar

"The answer to anyone's question about that is pay them more," Readings told trustees. "That's not my role. That's the role of the bus companies to do that." 

Most school bus drivers in the region aren't unionized, typically earn less than $20 an hour, work irregular hours in the form of a split shift and get little to no benefits.

Jim Whitehead, who drives a van for special needs children in the Aylmer area for Lang's Bus Lines and earns about 18 dollars an hour, said pay is a significant issue, especially for drivers of full-size school buses — responsible for up to 60 kids at a time. 

I don't think [bus drivers] are being paid fairly.- school bus driver Jim Whitehead

"I don't think [bus drivers] are being paid fairly, and I think it's hard to retain drivers and recruit drivers with the amount of responsibility that we have," he said.

Whitehead said the low pay, combined with irregular hours, keeps many workers away from what he described as a "niche kind of job." 

"You have to be okay with working twice a day, and you don't know if you're going to be out on the road if the weather is bad. There are a lot of variables and some people really don't want to deal with a lot of that." 

Provincial retainers not enough, says industry

The province tried to address the issue a number of years ago under the former Liberal government by paying drivers an additional $1,000 per term as a retention bonus on top of their salary through the Driver Retention Program, but some industry insiders say the money isn't enough. 

"It's basically worth about two dollars an hour to a driver on top of what they're earning," he said. "They have to work 90 per cent and can't take more than a couple weeks off," said Les Cross, the regional manager of Elgie Bus Lines and a past president of the Ontario School Bus Association, the industry group representing school bus companies.

Cross said he understood what Readings meant when he gave trustees the easiest solution to a bus driver shortage that's been causing havoc on some routes, but it's easier said than done, especially with inflation pressures when it comes to the higher price of fuel. 

"His point is well taken, more money is needed for the industry, but we are beholden to the province," he said. "It's the province that controls the purse strings." 

An official with the Ontario Ministry of Education told CBC News Wednesday that the province is already paying more than a billion dollars for school buses provincewide — a sum the official called "the highest level in Ontario history." 

"While the ministry provides funding to Ontario's 72 district school boards for student transportation, all decisions regarding student transportation are made by member school boards at the local consortium level," Grace Lee, the spokeswoman for Education Minister Stephen Lecce, wrote in an email Wednesday. 

"As local circumstances vary across the province, school boards and their student transportation consortium are in the best position to determine appropriate accommodation based on needs."