What private business in American would give part-time employees the same benefits as its full-time employees? Probably none that were solvent, yet if you drive a school bus for the Bedford County Public School System, that’s exactly the deal you can get.
The benefit program had its genesis in better times: when the county had trouble recruiting bus drivers, offering them full-time benefits was used as an incentive to attract and retain drivers. Today, drivers only pay $10 per month for health insurance (I pay much more than that and I have a full-time job). This incentive package ultimately costs the county more than $340,000 per year. As with so many other things, now that times aren’t as good (and localities aren’t receiving much help from Richmond), the county is giving this generous program a second look–much to the chagrin of the county’s school bus drivers.
After hearing from a packed room of school bus drivers angry at a proposal to eliminate full-time benefits they receive as part-time employees, the board agreed to free up about $214,000 to go toward offsetting the impact of that cut.
The money would come from Virginia Retirement System contributions the division is mandated by the state to make; the savings from eliminating the benefits without relief was $344,000.
The amended $100.2 million budget will now go to the Board of Supervisors for consideration; an earlier motion on the proposed $99.5 million plan failed.
The meeting drew a larger than usual crowd to the Bedford Science and Technology Center. The public had 25 minutes to comment. The majority of speakers were bus drivers opposing the cut in benefits.
Kathleen Chisom, who said she is a driver because of the benefits, said if those benefits were eliminated, she would have to pay $250 a month out of her pocket.
“I don’t think it’s right you’re asking us to do this,” she said.
I have great respect for the school bus drivers: they took me to and from school safely for seven years and theirs is a difficult job–maneuvering a large, commercial vehicle through a variety of traffic patterns all while trying to keep 30 or more kids from killing each other (imagine driving the Little League carpool in a long, yellow van), but honestly, you don’t think it’s right for the county to ask you to pay a greater share of your health insurance?
Maybe the new plan should be phased in incrementally, but to argue that it’s “not right” for the county to require you to pay more for your insurance? I guess “fairness” and “shared sacrifice” only apply when you’re a liberal politician trying to extract higher taxes, not when you’re a fiscally responsible school board member trying to ensure fairness for the taxpayers.
