The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
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Dexter bus drivers' contract settled
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 6, 2008
A new tentative contract between the Dexter school district and its bus drivers has been settled.
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Dexter Community Schools and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 547, the union representing all 31 bus drivers in the district, have reached a tentative agreement on the latest one-year contract.
Early on, the two sides worked through language changes from the previous contract.
"We worked a lot of the time on contract language and got a lot of that solved before we even talked any financial," said Deneen Smith, Local 547 steward for the bus drivers.
The drivers are also joined in the agreement by four bus monitors, who will receive the same wages and benefits as paraprofessionals in the district.
The bus monitors were added during semester bid, which is a regular period in which bus drivers bid on the various routes in the district.
Two additional drivers have been hired as well, although they will not be covered under the new contract until the end of a 60-day probationary period.
The districts drivers will now be paid based on the calendar number of days that school is in session, plus five paid days to be used for CPR and first aid training, safety meetings and yearly refresher sessions to maintain the proper licensure to drive a school bus.
"We used to get paid a minimum of 176 days," Smith said.
Under the extended 2006-07 contract, drivers were receiving $15.18 hourly at the entry level, with five steps up to $16.96 per hour.
Now the lowest step will be reduced to $15.02 per hour with six or more steps up to a maximum of $17.35 per hour.
"It amounted to a 1 percent increase, with some of the other people who have been here a little bit longer getting an additional 18 cents per hour," Smith said.
The contract did not affect the drivers' full family health insurance and remains available to employees without requiring contributions.
Longevity pay, which is a stipend after a certain number of years — up to $1,500, with the yearly contribution increasing $300 each year - also remained the same.
In addition to the lower minimum wage threshold and an expanded number of raise steps, "bridge time" was reduced from one hour to 30 minutes.
"It used to be if you had a field trip and your run started in less than an hour you could stay on the clock an hour, but now it is 30 minutes," Smith explained.
The 2007-08 school year contract expired last June 30. With contract negotiations being settled by mediation Jan. 25 and approved Monday by the Board of Education, that leaves a brief window of remaining time on the new contract before negotiations begin again in July.
Dexter Assistant Superintendent Mary Marshall said she is looking forward to getting a jump on negotiations this time around.
Marshall replaced former Assistant Superintendent Glen Stevenson last July 1.
"It will be good to start the process again, since I wasn't at the first few meetings at the beginning," Marshall said.
"If we can get it done (this time) before school is out, that would be great."
Marshall, who had previously said that it was difficult getting meetings set up between the district, the union and, later, mediators was a challenge that held things up a bit.
"I'm glad it was settled and it was very unsettling for the bus drivers to not have a contract and therefore very unsettling for me, and I'm happy for that," she said.
District Transportation Director Robert Poor said he's glad to have the issue settled, although his fleet staff barely missed a beat.
"They did a stellar job with the road conditions that they experienced this winter - they are real troupers," Poor said.
"They have been coming in and doing a wonderful job without complaining about the situation. I'm proud of the entire staff."
Poor said he personally thought the final agreement was tenable to both parties and that the final outcome sat squarely "in the middle" of the district's and the drivers' best interests.
Smith, who has represented the drivers in contract negotiations for the past four years, says she has no idea what July's negotiations will look like, citing the outcome of the bond election on May 6 as probably the biggest wild card to future negotiations.
"It will depend on if the bond passes or not, so it can free up other money so the district knows where to dispense (it)," Smith said.
"We won't even meet on the next year's negotiations until the bond is voted on, I'm sure."
Smith also characterized the new contract as a success.
"It didn't reduce (the bus drivers') health benefits and it was a raise, so I think that all in all they're pretty happy with it," she said.
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