Broward School Busing On The Road To Improvement

BROWARD COUNTY (CBSMiami) -- After receiving more than 600 complaints last year, the number of parent complaints over Broward's school transportation department has dropped steeply to six this year.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, while those figures don't include calls to individual bus terminals, it is still a major drop in complaints from last year after students were left stranded for hours by buses arriving late or never arriving at all.

The department also slashed overtime to  about $1.2 million from July to October. A significant drop from the $2.5 million they had to pay out in the same period last year.

While the department expects to shave $3.4 million off its $86 million budget, the overall budget will still be just $1 million less than it was last year. According to the Sun-Sentinel, rising fuel costs along with an additional 90 drivers and a 2% pay raise for all transportation workers forced the district to pump more money into the department's budget this year.   

Overtime may be down but the overall budget, we're keeping a close look at it,"School Board member Nora Rupert told the Sun-Sentinel . "If you come down in one area, we want to make sure we're not going up in another area."

The department eliminated 50 routes, implemented an electronic timekeeping system, and changed school start and dismissal times in order to cut costs.

Not everything was about savings.

Drivers were also given customer service training and all 1,300 buses now have GPS trackers.

"We needed to have a successful [school year] opening and that wasn't tied to savings. That was making sure we safely transport over 75,000 students," said Assistant Director of Transportation Eric Chisem to the Sun-Sentinel.