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Bemidji school bus driver urges board to address stalled contract, warns of driver shortages
Summary
A long-time district bus driver told the board drivers are "293 days" without a contract and said the district—s offer would cut pay and require paybacks; he warned that retention and recruitment will suffer without changes.
At the start of public participation, Brian Eastling, a district employee who has served as a paraprofessional and a school bus driver since 2009, told the Bemidji Public School District board that drivers feel undervalued and that contract negotiations have been unresolved for months.
Eastling said drivers are "currently on day 293 without a contract," described a district offer that he said would require drivers to repay hundreds of dollars for the current year and reduce take-home pay by roughly $100 per month next year, and warned this could force losses of student days and reduce pay for non-certified employees who are paid on student-day schedules.
He urged the board to reconsider the drivers—requests, invest in transportation to retain and recruit drivers and weigh the long-term costs of turnover. No detailed response to his claims was recorded in the meeting transcript beyond the board—s acknowledgment of the comment; subsequent agenda items included budget reductions and personnel actions that the administration said were part of broader deficit mitigation.
The transcript records the board listening to public comment and then moving on to scheduled consent and action items; the administration provided financial and staffing context later in the meeting.
