OCEAN CITY — With the peak season rapidly approaching, Ocean City still has a critical shortage of municipal bus drivers to meet the demand, although steps were taken this week to enhance recruitment.
During Monday’s regular council meeting, Mayor Rick Meehan briefed his colleagues on a special meeting of the Transportation Committee he called earlier on Monday to address the serious municipal bus driver shortage. The transportation committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday, but Meehan called the meeting early after getting the most recent bus driver recruitment numbers.
“I called this meeting a week early after reviewing the notes from the city manager,” he said. “We’re still trying to aggressively recruit in the transportation department. The impact is highly visible as we’re only getting out about half of our weekend bus deployment.”
Meehan said the driver shortage is curtailing the town’s efforts to get buses out on the highway as the summer ramps up.
“This is a red flag,” he said. “We knew our recruitment of bus drivers was down. The committee made a number of recommendations to try to increase the pool we reach from including paying overtime for the tram drivers and also recruiting from other divisions to work on the trams and the buses.”
GOOD !!! They don’t deserve any Good Drivers !!!! Make the Worthless Supervisors DRIVE !!!!!!
They treat Drivers like shhht so Do Yourself a FAVOR Don’t go there !!!! Ask those who did it before !!!!
Screw them !!!! They won’t ever see me ever again !!!
The town of OC does not pay enough and they are terrible to work for. They need to unionize the public works and transportation department like they did the police and fire dept.
Let’s be truthful here. I had been an OC bus driver for well over a decade. I had submitted a “yearly” application to their “operations manager” (formerly the local Catholic Church handyman) in March 2020 as in most years of the past. That persons “manager’s assistant” retired during the pandemic. He also had a manager named Mark. I don’t even know if he is still there but HIS administrative assistant resigned in 2020 and had the knowledge how to recruit, hire, train, and fire bus drivers as appropriate. The previous “Transportation Superintendent” was fired for drinking while driving an OC provided Ford Explorer to a wedding reception. He (and his former assistant) had the experience of working at the chicken plant in Selbyville. The assistant was let go and replaced by a former Recreation and Parks employee (they cut the grass) whose experience was that of a bartender. Some other past Transportation Managers were said to be fired for stealing bus fare cash. Can someone please explain how the Town Management can justify running their Transportation Department by a COMMITTEE???? This crying the blues is sickening.
What is left of Transportation management claims they have been calling former drivers who don’t call back. That is total BULL$hit. My phone number hasn’t changed in over a decade so they have not offered me a job for which grants me continous reemployment benefits that the MD Governor keeps sending my way and now wants to stop. Granted, Ocean City now pays drivers about the same as fast food workers (recent raise). They and their businesses continue to want to leverage the tax free J1 workers (plus the cash to employer bonuses).
What this article explains is not that they can’t hire drivers. It’s reeks of evidence that they DON”T KNOW HOW TO RECRUIT drivers. Let the Public Works director hire people who can MANAGE Transportation and have the Council get off his ass.
Problem Identified, your comments are well written and to the point. Throw your hat into this and fix this wrong doing.
Why not?
Nobody wants to drive for that city !!!!
If you want drivers you First have to Fire ALL the Supervisors !!!!!
Fortunately I have found a better employee while waiting for Ocean City transportation to come back. They get a bi-weekly check to feed their families. (Still) unemployed bus drivers have had to look for driver jobs in order to feed their families.
Yes, their less than popular “supervisors” (anyone remember ex FBI Frank?) have finally left but most that were remaining were fairly decent. The problem is with THEIR manager(s)? There are not many left except for their “committee”.
A total cluster F**k.
I drove there two summer seasons & was the best they will ever see , & take it from me those Dirty Supvrs
should ALL be FIRED !!!!
That dirty click has been there for too many years & they are worthless !!!
Time for Change !!!!
Don’t expect to get ANY good drivers as long as they are there !!!! NOT Happening !!!
Dangerous job there & Little Pay !!!! Dream on for Drivers !!!
FIRE Vernon Perdue & start from there !!!!
Better get that PAY up to PAR , say about $ 25 per hr or Forget it !!! See Ya
Do AWAY with that Micro-Managing Control Center on the Boardwalk or they can Shove it & Forget it !!!!
It is NOT needed & is a Distraction the Drivers DON”T need !!!!
Ocean City transportation officials are pulling out all the stops to make more trams go on the Boardwalk this summer.
Interim Transportation Manager Steve Bartlett said this week that a generous overtime offer was made to both existing drivers and to other city employees if they pick up some extra hours behind the wheel, but the number of drivers and conductors is still falling woefully short.
“The numbers right now are extremely behind where we need to be in order to get a full complement of trams on the Boardwalk at all times,” Bartlett said.
Ideally, he said he would like to have 22 drivers and 22 conductors, but only has about half of each. Currently, five trams run per day — two in the morning and two in the afternoon — from noon to midnight.
“They kind of overlap,” Bartlett explained “For about five hours every day, there are five trams at the same time.”
Officials were hoping to entice more people to the positions with a unique overtime offer to employees in all other departments — from police, to recs and park, to Beach Patrol — if they serve as tram drivers or conductors once they finish their regular shifts.
“Everybody was really excited about that until they realized it was the overtime tram rate and not their primary job rate,” Bartlett said. “We had no takers out of that offer.”
Tram drivers make $12.65 an hour and conductors make $11.75. The overtime rates at time-and-a-half are almost $19 an hour for drivers and a little more than $17 for conductors, a far cry from what some employees would be making if the overtime was offered at their regular rates.
Bartlett said the existing drivers were also offered overtime for the first time this season. However he added that many of the drivers, who are typically older retired individuals, do not work 40 hours, thus they would not qualify.
“We did give the drivers an overtime rate they didn’t have before,” Bartlett said. “We are just beating the bushes trying to find everybody we can
Rickie said “this is a red flag”. Oh really Beer-in-hand? Now its a red flag? Wasn’t this a red flag months ago? Was it when you/Larry were posing on the beach? Was it last year or prior years?
Now is too late – there is no one to recruit while folks are still sucking the teet of the taxpayer. Committee this, committee that – how has that really worked over time?
If running the town was like a private industry – you RICK would be fired on the spot. Too bad Buddy is gray like you…..sad state of affairs….Red flag my ass.
They are down to about their LAST full time Transportation Manager (supervisors are seasonal help with little relevant knowledge). The Mayor STILL looks to his “commitee” to solve a problem they know nothing about. Just wait until July 4th and the Air Show when the Town literally fills every parking space. It will be then that they realize how critical public transportation is to them.
Fire Bartlett too Been there toooooo Long !!!!
Ocean city is nothing but a corrupt arm of Annapolis !!!!
Fire Vernon Perdue & Steve Bartlett & start from there !!!!!!!!
Order Self-Driving Buses from Tesla !!!!!! SOLVED
Perfect Solution > No Supervisors !!!!!!
I too read this morning that OC can’t get enough drivers and conductors to fully staff the boardwalk TRAM either. The Operations Manager is now to interim Transportation Manager. He’s the last Transportation manager left in Public Works. I also hear they are short of garbage truck drivers. The Town has had a year to plan for this and they did not.
Time to shut it down and contract the function out like Rehobeth did.
They better watch ole sticky finger Vernon Perdue He has kissed the right ass all his life but his “stickys” made Perdue Farms terminate him.
I would like to be the Mayor there & i would FIRE all their asses & Start Fresh !!!! They are Deadbeats who
have sponged off the taxpayers for Too many years !!!!