Wisconsin has a school bus driver shortage. How a bipartisan fix made it into law
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MADISON — After a couple of school board members in southern Wisconsin realized it would be illegal for them to pitch in as a school bus driver, district officials and bipartisan lawmakers worked quickly to make a fix.
As school board members see it, stepping in to transport students is just another way to serve their communities as districts face critical shortages of the profession. But something called the "doctrine of incompatibility" prevents people from holding two public positions where one could supervise the other.
The bill, enacted in August, carves out an exception in state law. School districts may soon utilize the change as they face uncertain bus driver availability.
"I have no doubt that this will be implemented sometime in the near future in our district," said Bill Oemichen, president of the New Glarus School Board. So far, the district hasn't called on him or a newly elected member who had to stop driving the bus.
"But we know that's not going to last for very long, just because of the nature of school transportation," he said.
The bill quickly picked up bipartisan momentum this summer. Around the Capitol, the measure even earned a nickname — the "Bob and Bill" bill — after Oemichen and Bob Hesselbein, a board member in the Middleton-Cross Plains Area district, who advocated for the change.
A handful of school board members in Wisconsin were already believed to be driving a bus. Part of the impetus behind the bill was to ensure that insurance companies would not determine a school board member was acting illegally if they were involved in an accident.
School board members still have to pass a background check and get the right authorization and license. To avoid conflicts of interest, they must abstain from voting on issues concerning school bus drivers. Similar exceptions to the law exist if they want to volunteer as coaches or supervise extracurricular activities.
Hesselbein — who is married to Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, a lead author of the bill — said he hasn't yet joined the bus driving program but can act as an "emergency plugin" if needed. In the past, his district hasn't had enough drivers to pick students up in the morning or bring them to athletic activities.
New Glarus and Middleton-Cross Plains are "typically the top two school districts for quality in the Dane County area," Oemichen said. "And that just got attention from people: 'Well, if those two districts need this kind of help, who else does?'"
Bill is a small step toward alleviating the state's bus driver shortage
Lawmakers from both parties — and associations representing school boards and bus drivers — supported the measure as a small step toward addressing a critical statewide shortage.
Bus drivers are "extremely difficult" to replace, Oemichen said. New Glarus initially lost one bus driver and moved routes around to limit disruption to students and families.
"If we lost another one, then I'm quite certain the two of us would be called on pretty quickly to help provide backup," he said. "I just never know from day to day whether I'm going to get a call from the school district saying, 'Hey, Bill, we really need you to help out.'"
About a year and a half ago in Hesselbein's district, every school employee — even assistant superintendents — who had any type of commercial driver's license pitched in to drive a bus, he said.
"I was an Airbus captain for Delta Air Lines. I said, 'Well, I'm already a bus driver, only that one had seatbelt signs,'" he joked.
"Although, I said, 'Yeah, Bob, you were a pilot and you could shut that door and not listen to the cabin,'" Sen. Hesselbein added.
New Glarus has offered to pay for bus driver certification and training for board members or anyone in the community. Middleton-Cross Plains offers similar incentives, and four are currently in training to become full-time drivers.
While the other board member is a town road supervisor and has a Commercial Drivers License, Oemichen is qualified to drive a van — the main mode of transportation to get students to after-school activities. The district has a fleet of about 16 vans and buses.
"As a school board member, I just don't want our students to miss out on those really important extracurricular activities. It's sports, it's robotics, it's math competition, all of that," Oemichen said. "We don't want students to lose that opportunity just because there was nobody to get them there."
Factors like a strong economy and low unemployment contributed to the shortage, the Wisconsin School Bus Association testified at a hearing for the bill. Bus drivers left for other available jobs when schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and many did not return.
More than half of school bus contractors are facing shortages of 6% to 15% in Wisconsin and nationwide, according to the association.
More: Bus driver shortage means some Waukesha students don't even get picked up until after school starts
"From our largest school districts to our smallest, our most urban and most rural, all of them are struggling to find drivers," Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said when he signed the bill in New Glarus.
Rep. Scott Johnson, R-Jefferson, another author of the bill, also said the shortage is an "acute issue" in his district. Johnson himself has been driving a bus for "probably 25 plus years" and "(doesn't) plan on giving that up."
"People do become sick occasionally, and I operate mostly as a standby driver," Johnson said. "Last week, I was on three different routes, three days, because we were short drivers in the morning. And those buses need to go out."
Changing the law was a bipartisan effort for lawmakers in new positions
The bipartisan effort was led by lawmakers who are new to their legislative roles.
Hesselbein was recently elected to the Senate after serving a decade in the Assembly. She talked with now-Sen. Romaine Quinn, R-Cameron, who served with her for eight of those years, about their new roles in the upper chamber.
They discussed what they were working on, including Hesselbein's bus driver bill. Quinn was surprised it was illegal and joined in authoring the effort the next day.
Hesselbein said the bill was not as big as issues like Medicaid expansion or public school funding that are difficult to get through the Legislature, but a "small thing that can help people."
Johnson said it wasn't tough to help his caucus — which makes up the majority — understand the bill "because it was a pretty non-threatening piece of legislation."
"It certainly gives me hope that we can work together, we can produce good policy," said Johnson, who was elected last year. "I didn't come into the Legislature with a my-way-or-the-highway mentality. The time I've served my community prior to coming to the Legislature prepared me to be very centrist."
At the bill's signing in New Glarus, Rep. Mike Bare, D-Verona, also a new representative who led the measure, talked about the measure's success in a "very strange and difficult place to work at times."
"(It's) not easy to get something done in the state Capitol," he said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bipartisan law lets school board members fill bus driver shortages
