BIXBY, Okla. — Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller says the district has done all it can to pay bus drivers and other staff a competitive wage, but until the state provides schools more funding, it will be hard to continue to function without cutting services.
That includes cutting bus routes, which the district will do starting Tuesday because of a shortage in bus drivers.
“It seems like in Oklahoma, every time we take a step or two forward, something drags us back,” Miller said. “If we truly want to be a top ten state, we’re going to have to recruit and retain high quality people to bring us to that level.”
But Miller says districts are already squeezing themselves thin.
“The people who serve our students every single day make up nearly 90 percent of our budget,” Miller said.
That includes those bus drivers.
“We find ourselves five drivers short,” he said.
On Tuesday, Bixby Public Schools will have to start cutting bus service because of the shortage. A different route will trade off going dark each day so all students are impacted equally. Miller says students who can’t find a way to get to school on days their route is cut can talk to their school’s principal to make sure they get accommodated.
Miller says with the way the state has allotted funding, districts effectively lost funding this past year and haven’t been able to keep salaries competitive with the private sector.
“Even though inflation had gone up about eight percent over the past twelve months, we only received a half a percent increase in our funding,” he said. “That’s a 7 percent step backwards.”
With that in mind, he says the eyes of many superintendents across the state are focused on the promises candidates in next week’s gubernatorial and state superintendent elections are making.
“There’s no doubt in my mind at all, this is a very important election,” Miller said. “I’m not going to tell people how to vote… I would only tell them to really research the issues at play here.”
But Miller says it’s important for people to know certain facts.
“There’s been some things said out in the public about 51 percent of our funds go toward administration. That’s inaccurate,” Miller said.
State Superintendent candidate Ryan Walters made a statement about cutting administration costs in a debate televised in Oklahoma City last week.
“The money is not the problem,” Walters said during the debate. “The problem is we’re putting 51 percent of every dollar in education to administrative costs.”
Miller says those “administrative costs” cited in that statistic include the salaries of people like those already-in-short-supply bus drivers, and other vital support staff.
“Bus drivers—in that equation—count as administration,” Miller said. “So do child nutrition workers, so do librarians. So we have to be very careful about how that’s characterized.”
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