Valley View School Board votes to keep busing in-house after union concessions

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Updated: March 16, 2012 8:09AM

ROMEOVILLE — The Valley View School Board voted Monday to keep its transportation services unit within the district after negotiations with the bus drivers’ union yielded concessions on pay and other benefits.

A memo from Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services Gary Grizaffi advised the board to approve a new deal with AFSCME Local 3057 to keep the transportation unit in-house after a plan was reached that will save the district $2.5 million over three years.

The district considered outsourcing transportation services to a private transportation firm, Durham School Services, that would have saved the district an estimated $850,000 per year but the union’s concessions on hourly wages and starting wages for new employees made the move less appealing.

Before the vote, Grizaffi said that the concessions from the union got the district “close enough” to its needed savings, enough for him to recommend the rejection of the private bids.

Board Vice President Richard Gougis thanked the bus drivers and their union, but noted that the plan for bringing costs in line rested not just with drivers but also with maintenance costs and transportation administration.

“The drivers shouldn’t be forced to carry all of this,” he said, eliciting applause from the standing-room-only crowd at the district’s administration building.

“The drivers have done everything that we asked them to do,” he said.

Under the new plan, union President James Canady said that new drivers would earn a starting rate of $14, down from the previous starting wage of $19. Current employees would also take a 75-cent pay cut. In addition to those changes, three paid holidays and four paid in-service days will be eliminated under the plan as well as sick leave conversion. “We knew we had to do something,” said Canady of the concessions after the vote. He called the plan the “best option” to keep drivers working.

Union Vice President Marvin Goudeau said he was glad that his members had the chance to be part of the solution, calling the choice to renegotiate their contract a simple one.

“Would you rather have a pay cut or a job?,” asked Goudeau who works as a transportation monitor assisting special needs kids.

Goudeau said that the drivers also took the big-picture approach, noting that their safety and vehicle maintenance records were better than the private transportation companies could offer the district.