By JEANNE STARMACK

By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Think it's a sweet deal to have a 20-hour work week and health benefits, too?
Forty-two bus drivers in the Austintown School District have just such a deal, and that's prompted the state auditor to suggest the district renegotiate to eliminate the benefits for the drivers.
"Implement a 25-hour minimum workweek for health-care," says a state performance audit released last month, and save 131,000 a year.
But, say officials of Austintown and other Mahoning County school districts, such a renegotiation is easier said than done.
Besides, they say, how would they get people to work 20 hours a week, two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, without some sort of incentive?
Benefits are the incentive that many districts use to ensure they can attract good drivers to the job, said Doug Heuer, superintendent at Austintown. In Canfield, Boardman and Youngstown districts, officials concurred.
Austintown Treasurer Barb Kliner said that in the district, 27 drivers are on family coverage. Each driver pays 386 a year for that coverage, while the cost to the district is 10,635.
Seven drivers are on single coverage, paying 159 each a year. The district's cost for each of those drivers is 4,378.
Eight drivers chose not to take the coverage.
What's included
Coverage includes medical benefits and prescriptions. It amounts to 317,791 a year, according to Kliner's figures.
The discrepancy between her figures and what the state projects as a savings if the district stops paying for the benefits likely results from the fact that 18 of the drivers have other jobs in the district, so their workweeks are more than 25 hours, Heuer said. Those 18 would continue to receive the benefits.
Mike Creatore, board of education president, said the board knows there are issues that need to be negotiated, but said it is hard to make major changes in the contract.
He also said that if there is a district that doesn't provide benefits, "I'd be shocked."
"I don't know where they [the state] expect us to find bus drivers without that," said Carolyn Funk, treasurer of Youngstown schools.
Jim Massey, director of operations at Boardman schools, said drivers are not only expected to work the split shift but must have a CDL license and must pass a background check before being hired.
Rich Archer, business manager at Canfield schools, said that in his experience there and as superintendent in Springfield schools in Summit County and in Sebring schools, bus drivers were offered benefits. He remembered a performance audit the state did at Springfield, he said, and that audit had the same recommendation as Austintown's.
"It's easy to say that but it's difficult to do," he said.
starmack@vindy.com