South Bend schools raise bus driver pay and incentives to address ongoing shortage

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Many Michiana school districts are still struggling to hire enough bus drivers, a shortage that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues years later.

Now, some school corporations are taking drastic measures to recruit and retain qualified applicants.

South Bend Community School Corporation transportation staff are seeing a five-dollar-per-hour pay increase, bringing driver wages to a competitive rate between $28 and $30 an hour.

Transportation Director Bob Durm said the district is committed to becoming the highest-paying employer in the area.

“They’ve made a commitment to have the highest paid and best trained employees in the area and they’ve come through on their own. So now it’s up to us to make sure they’re getting trained properly and we don’t have any more excuses for not filling routes or being late for buses,” Durm said.

In addition to the pay boost, drivers are now eligible for mentor programs, referral bonuses and a new perfect attendance incentive, which is broken down per pay period.

Bus driver and union president Jack Derrickson said the raise was a great surprise.

“Yeah, but that raise was like wow,” Derrickson said.

Drivers are already benefiting from the increase, which was approved by the school board and made retroactive to Jan. 5.

“It shows management really recognizes what the drivers do bringing these kids back and forth from school,” he said. “Not always an easy job, not easy at all, but I love what I do. I love my kids. Makes it a lot easier when you like what you do,” said Derrickson.

Derrickson believes the pay increase is the change needed to alleviate past staffing problems and attract top talent to keep students safe and on time moving forward.

“As you know before we were short drivers so it made a lot of things really tight, but now it’s starting to run a little bit better and you can tell the morale is a lot better too,” he said.

The district is still accepting applications here.