“Some school bus drivers will see cut in payment.”
PHILIPSBURG:--- Minister of Education Silveria Jacobs said that her Ministry has no intention of paying more monies for services that they do not receive. The Minister made the statement when she was asked to expound on the fears among School Bus drivers about the loss of income.
Jacobs said that it's been over five years now that the Ministry of Education has been dealing with the issues regarding how much money is spent on school transportation. She made clear that she is not picking a fight with anyone but definitely some bus drivers will receive less than they are accustom of collecting since some bus drivers have been billing government for trips that they made with no students on board of their vehicles. She said that her Ministry along with the Ministry of TEATT conducted a study and it is proven that governmen have been paying way too much for school bus transportation and that some bus drivers submit invoices for services they do not provide. The Minister said while government and the bus drivers have been discussing this matter for some time the bus drivers did not accept the proposal by government whereby they would pay the bus drivers based on the amount of students they transport. She said that they had discussions about parents paying for their children to be taken to school while government would provide some type of training to the drivers so they could deal with students that behave out of order on the buses.
The Minister said that she made that proposal in order to give parents more confidence in the safe transportation of their children so that the parents would use the school buses instead of taking their children to school.
Jacobs further explained that while there has been much talk about the NAF100,000.00 her Ministry receives she wants people to know that the Education Ministry had to make several cuts in order to cover their annual expenses.
Ministry of Education simply cannot afford to pay more for the services they receive.
