As Northwest ISD continues to navigate a shortage of bus drivers, its board of trustees approved a pay increase for the district's drivers at its Oct. 18 meeting.
The board approved increasing the starting hourly rate for all NISD bus drivers from $18 an hour to $20 an hour, as well as giving all current bus drivers a $2 an hour pay increase that is retroactive to Oct. 10, according to district documents.
The decision to increase wages for drivers did not come out of nowhere. Superintendent Ryder Warren previously announced that the district was facing driver shortages in a Facebook Live update on Sept. 7. He said the district was having trouble getting kids to and from school on time and asked parents to unenroll their kids in the bus program, if possible.
Later, when the district compared NISD’s bus driver wages to those of surrounding school districts, it found “that NISD’s starting pay rate is the lowest in the area,” according to the agenda for the Oct. 18 meeting. The district also saw its applicant list shrink and began to lose drivers to other surrounding districts with higher wages.
