Aug. 23, 2021

Steve Hey is prepared to drive a bus on the first day of school, if he needs to.

Hey is the vice president of business development for School Bus, Inc., the company contracted by the Sioux Falls School District to bus K-12 to class in the morning and back home at the end of the day.

For several years, the demand for school bus drivers has outpaced supply, he said. Typically, the company starts the season about 10 to 20 drivers short, but with the added labor shortages brought on by the pandemic, this year is a whole new ball game.

“We started the summer needing as many as 35 new drivers,” Hey said.

Cities nationwide are feeling the strain of too few drivers for school buses, and in Sioux Falls the shortage extends to city bus drivers, too.

Glenn Wright, operations manager with Sioux Area Metro said since the pandemic hit, the city bus company has struggled to find applicants for open bus driver positions.

It’s gotten to the point where, now, at about 10 drivers short, the company has had to make adjustments to the routes offered because there aren’t enough people to drive them all.

“It’s a really weird environment,” Wright said. “It’s like people really don’t want to work.”

Finding bus drivers isn’t as simple as adding incentives to the hiring process, though both Sioux Area Metro and School Bus, Inc. say those tactics have helped.

Sioux Area Metro recently raised its hourly rate by $4 up to just over $19, a move Wright said he hopes will bring in more applicants, though it’s too soon to tell.

School Bus, Inc. offers hiring bonuses, retention bonuses and paid training for people who need to get a commercial drivers license. But Hey recognizes that those types of incentives are becoming more common, and thus lose their luster a bit for prospective employees.

Hey said the company has also been reaching out to drivers who’ve worked with them in the past, and they’ve hosted job fairs in-house, participated in other community job fairs and had a substantial presence at the Sioux Empire Fair in an effort to recruit.

“We’ve made some progress, but not all the way,” he said.

While Sioux Area Metro has the option to reduce available routes, that’s not something School Bus, Inc. can do. So, if the first day of school comes, and there are gaps in the school routes, employees in non-driving roles are prepared to step in.

“Everybody in our maintenance shop, as well as virtually everybody in our office staff are all CDL licensed,” Hey said. “We all know that (filling in the gaps) comes with the territory these days, so we’re all ready to go in case any of us needs to step in.”

Both companies also offer training, so a person could apply with no commercial driving experience and still be a good candidate.