Denair school district likely to hire Storer for bus drivers

At a special meeting Thursday night, the Denair Unified School District board is expected to hire Storer Transportation Services of Modesto on a full-time basis to supply its bus drivers. Storer has been doing the job on an emergency basis since the first of the year.

Denair needs two drivers each in the morning and afternoon to handle its routes, according to a news release from the district. But repeated recruitment efforts last fall generated no qualified applicants. Instead, other district employees qualified to drive a bus – a custodian, a utility worker and a transportation supervisor – took time away from their regular duties.

The matter before the board Thursday is whether to hire Storer through the end of this school year in May. Storer was the only bus company to respond after the school board requested bids in December.

The proposed contract would pay Storer $75,400. The deal would require Storer to use and maintain Denair’s four buses and offer an equivalent position to the district’s former transportation supervisor.

About 120 of Denair’s 1,300 elementary through high school students ride the bus daily, district officials said. Linda Covello, Denair’s chief business officer, said the outsourcing arrangement will be re-evaluated at the end of the school year.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the boardroom, 3460 Lester Road, Denair. The full agenda is available at http://bit.ly/1L1AX75.

This story was originally published January 21, 2015 at 4:21 PM with the headline "Denair school district likely to hire Storer for bus drivers."