“You have to know what’s behind the numbers. With- out that, you’re lost,” he said. “You need to be the one in control by knowing what’s behind your numbers.” Fuel is a prominent input cost and is diligently monitored. “I can control my usage, but we’re at the
mercy of the oil companies, of course. My CFO and (school) board will hold me to consumption, but they don’t
hold me to price,” he said. His KPIs, which tracked an additional 100,000 miles that
resulted from the launch of a high school techical vocation center and other factors, “help me let the board know what’s behind the numbers.” Like many transportation directors across the country, Bagert said his biggest challenge is managing labor costs in an era of qualified workforce shortages. He doesn’t recall fielding a full team of drivers in at least six years. “Te hours don’t change. Tere are so many routes, so many shuttles, so many mid-day vocational runs and so on. Right now, though, I have 12 vacancies for drivers,” he explained. “If I had a full contingent, I could keep everyone’s hours to 40 per week, but some are driving 60 hours a week. Instead of paying $14 per hour, we’re paying $21 an hour for a lot of hours.”
Meanwhile, one of Bailey’s KPIs in Biloxi tracks main- tenance with a sharp eye on assuring optimal vehicle in-service time. “If I don’t keep buses in service, I lose drivers. If you leave a busload of students on the side of the road because of maintenance issues, the driver is going to say, ‘I don’t get paid enough for this,’” Bailey said. “We constantly follow up on what is in service and out of service and why.” Part of ensuring the most effective use of mechanics’ time is making sure they are not pressed into service as fill-in drivers. “We rarely have a mechanic driving a bus,” he said. Gadway’s three KPIs all connect to operating costs in one way or another. Tracking student ridership trends connected to sports programs could yield cost reductions as the district prepares for a school start-time change this fall. “I’ve been tracking them for a few years, knowing this is coming up,” she said. “I also wanted to know how many miles our buses were traveling overall to see if we could do some cost reductions with how our routes are done.” Monitoring maintenance comes in two areas—staffing and vehi-
cle repairs. “We have a history of issues related more to rust. We’re following what it costs to repair those problems and get those buses back on the road,” Gadway said.
See Us At Booth #146 56 School Transportation News • JUNE 2017 CELEBRATING25YEARS
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