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Ann Arbor Public Schools amended its contract with Durham School Services on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016.

(The Ann Arbor News file)

ANN ARBOR, MI - Bus drivers for Ann Arbor Public Schools will now be hired in at $20.32 an hour after the school district amended its contract with busing contractor Durham School Services on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

The $4-an-hour pay raise is an effort to attract more people to the job after a lack of bus drivers canceled five AAPS routes the morning of Oct. 24. AAPS had ongoing issues with its busing at the start of the school year, including overcrowding of buses, buses running late and not having timely communication with families about delays.

Superintendent Jeanice Swift suggested several ways to remedy the situation at a school board meeting on Oct. 26, and the board voted 6-0 to add her recommendations to the contract with Durham on Wednesday. Brad Tate, regional vice president for Durham, attended Wednesday's meeting.

AAPS is in the second year of a three-year, $16.7 million contract with Durham. Board parliamentarian Simone Lightfoot noted that the $4-an-hour pay raise is in addition to regular annual raises for drivers already included in the contract.

The pay raise could cost the district an extra $340,000 this school year, which Swift said is a preliminary estimate at this point. AAPS is saving $740,000 a year, Swift said, with the Durham contract when compared to the district's in-house transportation costs five to 10 years ago.

"We're doing more support and more service in more specialized ways and still showing these savings," Swift said.

Board secretary Andy Thomas pointed out that the savings Swift quoted does not take into account the rising cost of benefits for school employees, the rate of inflation, the growing cost of operating expenses like fuel or the fact AAPS now runs more bus routes than it has in the past.

"I do think that the amounts that are shown here significantly understate the savings that we are realizing. ... I think we all realize that if we had continued this as an in-house transportation system, our costs would not be what they were 10 years ago," Thomas said.

Another aspect of the contract revision is to have Durham pay for an independent audit to evaluate the efficiency of its operations for AAPS. Swift expects to use the results of that audit to guide further improvements in the busing system for the 2017-18 school year.

"That audit is in rough draft now. It's very close to being ready," Swift said. "We feel like these adjustments (in the contract amendment approved Wednesday) will give us a great opportunity to get our drivers hired. But before we plan for next year, we'll get a full reporting on this audit, and that will be how we plan for our changes for next year."

Since the issues with cancelled routes, Swift and other school district administrators have closely monitored the transportation system each week. The contract amendment also states AAPS will not pay for routes that do not run.

As part of her superintendent's report Wednesday, Swift said high school bus routes have been running on time 97 to 100 percent of the time in recent weeks, middle school routes are on time 82 to 95 percent of the time, and elementary routes are on time 91 and 100 percent of the time.

Three middle school routes were changed this week, Swift said, and other adjustments will be made after winter break to try to keep the buses running on time more often. Administrators and Durham employees have come up with a plan to address transportation issues at Ann Arbor Open, which has students from across the county arriving by bus, and those steps still need to be implemented, Swift said.