LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Several Clark County school bus drivers who are out of work this summer protested in front of the Nevada governor’s Las Vegas office on Friday. They also dropped off a petition and list of demands to Governor Joe Lombardo. The district employs about 1,300 drivers, according to its website, but a majority of them aren’t working this summer for the first time in three years.
According to CCSD, this has to do with federal COVID-19 relief funds. The district has run out of ESSER funds, which kept nine-month contract drivers employed through the summer. A spokesman with CCSD’s communication department said the district is relying on its 11-month contract drivers, about 220 drivers, to bus special education students, who are enrolled in the site-funded summer programs. Those programs run from May 23 to June 13. It’s the 9-month contract employees who are unemployed. The drivers were told in advance they wouldn’t be working, according to CCSD officials. On June 14, those on nine-month contracts can bid to work during the Extended School Year (ESY) program which runs from June 20 to July 17. Teamsters Local 14 declined to speak to the media and advised their drivers, to do the same…