In the parking lot at East Cary Middle School, bus driver Auh-murel Wright walks down the aisle of her bus between rows of empty seats, checking the alarms and the emergency exits. She does this before each trip to make sure her ride is safe. And she knows the exact minute she can expect the first students to climb aboard鈥�2:13 p.m.
"When it comes to being on time I鈥檓 very, very strict about that," she laughed. "And my kids know that."
Wright loves driving kids to and from school. But there is one thing lacking鈥攖he pay. She started out at just under $12 an hour. Now, after ten years on the job, she鈥檚 making just $13.75 an hour. That puts her well below the federal poverty level for her family of three.
"I feel like it鈥檚 not fair," she said. "As long as I鈥檝e been here, I feel like at least somewhat of a raise every year would be good, especially with me having two kids and having them on my health insurance."
About a quarter of Wright's monthly pay goes to her family health plan, leaving her with less than $1,000 a month to pay for rent, utilities and food for herself and her two girls. That鈥檚 a tough task to manage if she didn鈥檛 have a partner helping her out financially.
"I鈥檓 very thankful because if I didn鈥檛, and I didn鈥檛 have a supportive family, I would probably be living in a one-bedroom with two kids," she said.
Wright鈥檚 partner is also a bus driver. He has to work a second job in retail to make ends meet for their family.
Poverty-Level Wages For Other School Employees, Too
Bus drivers aren鈥檛 the only school employees earning poverty-level wages. More than half of Wake鈥檚 non-instructional employees earn less than $15 an hour, even after decades on the job, according to David Neter, chief financial officer for Wake County Schools.
"A teacher assistant who might start out at $11.80 an hour would not hit the $15 an hour rate until they were here 27 years," Neter said.
The salary schedule for school employees is set by the state, so the low wages aren鈥檛 unique to Wake County. Some districts, like Wake, supplement the state salaries with local taxes. Wright鈥檚 hourly rate of $13.75 includes the local supplement.
Neter said the state usually gives school employees annual raises, but state and local budgets became tighter during the recession, so there were no raises during that time.
"But even after we got out of the recession, and with the growing economy, there were either no or limited increases for these people," he said. "So that鈥檚 really created a compression that鈥檚 exacerbated what was already in place."
Neter said the pay schedule is not only hard for employees, it also makes it extremely difficult to recruit and retain bus drivers. Wright says she鈥檚 sticking around because she enjoys her job, but many of her former colleagues have left for better pay.
"With Wake County, it鈥檚 like a revolving door," she said.
Bus driver recruitment is one reason why Wake County School Board Vice-Chair Monika Johnson-Hostler wants to increase the district鈥檚 minimum wage to $15 an hour. But she said it鈥檚 also about taking care of all the district鈥檚 employees.
"And when I say 'take care of,' I mean these people are working, we鈥檙e not giving them anything that they鈥檙e not earning," she said. "I鈥檓 just advocating that we remotely start to touch the conversation of paying them what we think people鈥檚 time and efforts are worth, especially the people who are engaged with our most prized possessions, and that鈥檚 our children."
Neter estimates getting all employees to a minimum of $15 an hour would cost the district tens of millions of dollars, and would probably take a number of years.
But Johnson-Hostler remains hopeful she can get public support in Wake County for the raise, even though ideally she鈥檇 want the state to boost pay for employees in every district.
