Vermilion Parish School Board increases hourly wage for after-school bus drivers

It is hard enough to find full-time school bus drivers, but it is even harder finding school bus drivers who want to work after a school day is over. The School Board is hoping more money will be enough to entice them.
When a school bus driver drives a bus of basketball players, football players or BETA students to events, the driver is paid per hour by the school.
For years the driver was paid $8.50 per hour. Minimum wage today is $7.25 per hour. Being paid 75 cents an hour above minimum wage was not enough to attract bus drivers to extra curriculum activities, said transportation supervisor Ken Small.
For the last six months, Small said he has been talking with bus drivers and Superintendent Jerome Puyau about trying to raise the per hour rate as way to entice the driver.
Small called surrounding parishes to find out what other parishes are paying their bus drivers. Lafayette Parish pays its drivers $12 per hour.
After speaking with Puyau, the two men came to an agreement of $11 per hour. The pay increase is for drivers who drive to extra curriculum activities only.
“It is going to be a lot easier to find a driver at $11 per hour,” said Small after the school board meeting on Thursday.
The pay will go into effect on Jan. 6 of 2014.