Even with the contract, the district has struggled to fill vacancies for about 38 bus routes with growing student enrollment and high turnover rates across operations jobs, Chief Operations Officer Ted Vierling said at the Feb. 17 work study meeting.
The details
GoldStar will provide the drivers and buses for 30 routes with four spare buses, according to the contract. KISD will make an annual payment of nearly $89,000 per route, according to district documents.
The approval of this contract comes as the previous GoldStar contract comes to an end, according to the 2020 contract. Previously, GoldStar was contracted for 30 bus routes for $74,000 per route.
The contract will start in time for the 2025-26 school year and will end in June 2028, though there is an option to extend it for two years, according to the contract.
Like the KISD bus drivers, GoldStar drivers are paid hourly on a part-time basis, working from four and a half to seven hours per route, district officials said in an email to Community Impact. After five hours, the district will be billed for overtime.
Zooming out
KISD has 342 bus drivers on its staff, with approximately 38 vacancies, district officials said in an email to Community Impact. Open bus routes are currently covered by office staff mechanics, Executive Director of Transportation Paul Landis said.
While bus driver vacancies are widespread across the nation, KISD faces challenges due to its status as a growing district, Vierling said.
Over the past five years, KISD has seen the highest enrollment growth out of any other district in the Houston area, Community Impact reported. In particular, 11,634 single-family units in the northern portion of the district are projected to have the largest impact on enrollment over the next decade.
“We came back from Christmas holidays, and you've got folks that have moved into a neighborhood that's not even on Google Maps. And so as you extend, as you get bigger in the district, that's a challenge for us,“ Vierling said.
Vierling said with the growth of the special education population, which has more than doubled since the 2015-16 school year, the district will need to add more routes as each bus accommodates about 10 students.
In comparison
With the exception of Cy-Fair ISD, Goldstar Transit leads neighboring districts in starting hourly wages for bus drivers, according to recent job postings on district websites. At the Nov. 11 board meeting, CFISD trustees approved raising the starting pay rate for drivers from $19.19 an hour to $23 an hour, according to prior Community Impact reporting.
“While GoldStar pays drivers $21.50 per hour, the district offers a competitive compensation package which includes comparable pay, paid time off, optional health insurance and low-cost child care, in addition to earned bonuses for attendance and recruiting,” district officials said in an email to Community Impact.
Trustee Rebecca Fox said due to the competition in surrounding districts, raising the pay for bus drivers in the past has not been the solution to the KISD’s bus driver shortage.
“When we raised, [other districts] would raise. Being at the top was never the answer to the bus driver shortage,” Fox said.
Looking ahead
Vierling said the district will continue to hold job fairs for positions across the operations department as they often have high turnover rates.
“In operations, whether it's food service or maintenance, custodial, bus drivers, it's a very cyclical thing. Folks kind of come and go. We don't see as many people staying for the long term,” Vierling said.
