Cobb County Schools' Fleet Maintenance team raises alarm over staff shortages, aging equipment

Fleet maintenance team seeks help from school board

Broken equipment, understaffed, old school buses just some of the problems fleet maintenance employees say they're having in Cobb County Schools.

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - Eric Carroll has worked as a mechanic for Cobb County Schools for 14 years.

What they're saying:

"We're trying our best to provide a safe fleet for the children," said Carroll.

Carroll says the Fleet Maintenance Department has problems.

"We've got multiple problems and nobody will listen," said Carroll.

That's why the entire department showed up at Thursday's school board meeting to tell the board what they go through just to keep school buses on the road.

"Our equipment that we rely on is failing," said BJ Bailey.

"We've been understaffed for 5 years," said Danny Hendrix.

There are 20 employees in the Fleet Maintenance Department. They take care of 450 school vehicles, such as school police cars and food service trucks, as well as 1,000 buses that need a lot of care.

"There's no reason we should be running a 25-year-old bus up and down the street every day," said Hendrix.

They say people are working very long hours because they just don't have enough employees.

"Last year I worked 550 hours of overtime. I'm worn out. You can't do a safe job when you're worn out," said Carroll.

"People get fatigued. When you get fatigued, you make mistakes. In our business, you can't make a mistake. If you make a mistake on a bus, it could be a fatality," said Hendrix.

They say it's hard to hire qualified people when the pay is lower than other districts. They also say the retirement benefits don't even come close to what teachers receive. Carroll says they feel like no one cares.

"14 years and I've never seen the superintendent in our shop," said Carroll.

The other side:

School officials say the concerns of the transportation team are incredibly important. In a statement, a spokesperson said, "The concerns voiced by members of our transportation team are incredibly important to our superintendent, board members, and staff. Sadly, this is the first time district leadership has heard of their concerns, but now that we have, we will look into them immediately. We look forward to working one-on-one with our transportation team to see what, if anything, can be done to make our students and staff even safer."

"That's kind of a sign that we're getting somewhere, maybe," said Carroll.