Bus Drivers Will Keep Their Jobs--For Now

CORONA —  Armed with cost-cutting proposals and an offer “to make many sacrifices and cuts,” local school bus drivers this week persuaded the Board of Education to let them keep their jobs for at least another year.

The board voted 3 to 2 Tuesday night to reject the administration’s recommendation to hire a private company--at an estimated annual savings of at least $200,000--to operate buses for the Corona-Norco Unified School District. Instead, the board ordered administrators to study the bus drivers’ cost-cutting ideas and other ways--including a switch to private busing in 1987--to reduce the district’s transportation budget.

Board members Louis VanderMolen and Charles H. Carter voted in favor of hiring an outside bus company beginning this September, with the provision that the contractor would have to hire the employees laid off by the school district.

A survey of nearby school districts--including those in Riverside and Irvine--found administrators were universally pleased with the performance of their contract bus companies in regard to safety, service and cost-savings, according to Robert W. Crank, assistant superintendent for business services.

The drivers--many of whom questioned the hiring practices and safety measures that a profit-making company would maintain--suggested that the district could reschedule bus runs, reduce staffing and breaks, and contract out its own buses to save as much as $260,000 a year.

Most of their suggestions, Supt. Don Helms noted, would require contract concessions from the bus drivers’ union, the California School Employees’ Assn.

“I’m not sure the drivers can get the full support from their union,” said board member Terry Young.

The recommendation to ax the transportation department was one of the most difficult he has ever made, Helms said moments before the vote to reject that proposal.

“I think (the district’s drivers) probably do with pride a better job than we’ll get with contract busing,” he said. Still, he said, his recommendation was dictated by the impact of busing costs on the district budget.