VIERA, Fla. – A raise for bus drivers in Brevard County has some other school district employees feeling left out.
After Brevard Public Schools announced the $5/hour raise for all drivers last week, maintenance workers asked the Brevard County school board for a raise too during Tuesday’s meeting.
“I feel like we’re kind of being left behind,” one Brevard Public Schools employee said.
“We have some techs that have been here for more than eight years that aren’t even making $20/hour,” another worker told the board.
$20/hour is the new starting pay for bus drivers.
Superintendent Dr. Mark Rendell said with 90 openings, jobs need to be filled or else students face longer rides to school or no ride at all.
“We are in a crisis situation with the lack of bus drivers so the idea was to move as quickly as possible,” Rendell said.
Since announcing the raise, board chair Matt Susin said 66 new drivers have applied.
“We’ve had some of the most amazing responses,” Susin said.
Board members also responded to the criticism from maintenance workers.
“It should have been messaged that we care about you as well, we are working on you next,” Jennifer Jenkins said. “But that’s not the message that we sent and it’s evident based on the emails that we’re getting, the phones call that we’re getting and people showing up here today.”
Megan Wright said workers are not being left out.
“You’re not overlooked. That was the fire that was burning the brightest at that moment that had to be taken care of,” Wright said of the bus driver raise.
With their raise secured, bus drivers will bring 20,000 students back to school on Aug. 10.
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