Report: Wisconsin has lost nearly 18% of school bus drivers in last 15 years

WISCONSIN (CBS 58) -- School districts have been struggling for years to find bus drivers, but communities haven't seriously felt its impact until recently.

The Wisconsin Policy Forum released a report in early February 2024 about Wisconsin school districts struggling to find enough bus drivers to take kids to school.

"It's been a downward trend, but it hasn't really gotten to the point where it's caused service delays until just this year or the past few years," said researcher Tyler Byrnes, who authored the report.

Over the past 15 years, Wisconsin has seen a 17.7% drop in licensed school bus drivers, according to the report. Byrnes told CBS 58 News that's nearly 3,000 fewer people in possession of a bus driver's license.

"We've seen fewer drivers but we're also seeing that the number of students enrolled in school, at least both in public and private school, are staying relatively flat," he added.

Byrnes said the situation might get worse before it gets better. More than one-fifth of those drivers are ages 65 and older and it's likely other workers may be transitioning to other jobs.

"Once you have a school bus driver's license you can drive a school bus, you can also drive a passenger bus, you could also drive any other heavy truck," Byrnes said.

The researcher said the solution for the near future might be optimizing the already established routes.

"There's been some attempts to address this by sharing resources between transit systems and school bus contractors," he added.

Read the full report here: