Emotional tears and pleas from bus drivers persuaded Kuna School District trustees to unanimously approve keeping transportation duties in-house rather than seeking an outside contractor.
Nearly 40 bus drivers, dispatchers and bus aides filled every open seat at Tuesday’s board meeting. Tense expressions and furrowed brows watched trustees as they discussed the process to find a busing contractor in an effort to cut costs.
“I lose my job, I lose my benefits, I lose my PERSI, we lose everything,” bus driver Guadalupe Ballesteros told Idaho Education News.
Two transportation employees argued their case before the board during the public comment period.
Cal Liedtke gave a prepared speech that exceeded the allotted three minutes — with nods of approval from trustees — to last around six minutes.
“The only argument for turning the transportation over to a for-profit contractor is this — money,” Liedtke said, producing a dollar bill from his pocket.
Liedtke doubted a contractor would provide savings because the cost of a contract would “surely increase” in following years.
“They are all my children,” said bus dispatcher Yvonna Chandler. “We all feel that way, they are our children.”
Chandler wore a shirt that read “5800 kids and counting,” the number of students whose transportation she’s overseen throughout her time at the Kuna district.
Kuna’s bus drivers are loyal to the district, Liedtke said, not for money but because they see themselves as caregivers.
“I wanted to come to the board on a level of pathos to hit them on an emotional level,” Liedtke said in an interview with Idaho Education News. “This is what it means to be a bus driver.”
Liedtke said the other drivers asked him to speak because he previously worked as a professor of communications and theater at the Pasadena City College in California.
The board weighed moving to a transportation contractor in response to calls for fiscal responsibility from constituents. But the Kuna district already spends less dollars per mile to transport students than many neighboring districts, administrators said.
Assistant superintendents Jason Reddy and Brian Graves and transportation director Brenda Saxton spoke to the board about the contractor search.
“We have a deal here, doing it in house,” said Saxton. “We have great people here.”
They recommended the board not continue searching for a contractor. Trustee JD Grant motioned to “keep it the way it is.”
The motion met approval from the four trustees in attendance. Trustee Hillary Lowe was absent.
With the future of their jobs and benefits secured, Kuna transportation employees exchanged hugs, wiped sweat from their brows and tears from their eyes.
“I think there’s a lot of good reasons to stay in-house, cost being one of them,” said trustee Kimberly Nixon. “But also loyalty to the bus drivers. Not just loyalty, but knowing they get to have PERSI, they get our benefits, and they don’t have as high a turnover as some of the other districts around us, is important.”
