WEST CANAAN — A Mascoma-area state legislator has proposed a bill that would make it easier for Vermont-licensed school bus drivers to become certified in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire state Rep. Thomas Oppel, a Canaan Democrat who represents Grafton – District 9, decided to introduce the bill after learning about the challenge of finding bus drivers to serve the Mascoma Valley Regional School District.
Mascoma was forced to make some last minute changes to its bus routes as the school year began in August because of the shortage of drivers.
One difficulty is the licensing requirements in Vermont and New Hampshire, Steve Landon, location manager at Butler’s Bus Service branch in White River Junction, told the Valley News in September.
People licensed to drive in New Hampshire can easily drive in Vermont because the Green Mountain State recognizes New Hampshire licenses, but New Hampshire requires drivers with Vermont licenses to go through the process as if they are a new bus driver.
“I hadn’t thought about it and I was kind of surprised that Vermont would recognize New Hampshire certifications, but New Hampshire wouldn’t recognize Vermont,” Oppel, whose district includes Canaan, Dorchester and Orange, said in a phone interview this week.
He spoke to New Hampshire Department of Transportation officials and asked Legislative Services in Concord, which assists lawmakers with research, to put together a side by side comparison of Vermont and New Hampshire requirements. They are similar in that both states require that bus drivers have a commercial driver’s license, known as a CDL, and an added bus driver certification.
“If you’re certified in New Hampshire or Vermont, you can drive in either state if my bill passes,” Oppel said.
Oppel has found co-sponsors for his bill, including Rep. David Fracht, D-Enfield, and Rep. Henry Giasson, R-Goffstown.
Before signing onto the bill, Giasson, a member of the House Transportation Committee, wanted to confirm that the two states’ requirements were similar, he said in a phone interview this week. Giasson was satisfied with the research Oppel did.
“If a New Hampshire bus company can employ a Vermont bus driver with no safety risk to the public, I don’t see why we wouldn’t allow it at this point,” Giasson said.
Even though Goffstown is more than an hour from the Vermont border and the bill would not necessarily affect Giasson’s constituents, he said, “I think it’s a good call to expand our market to people in border states.”
While the bill won’t necessarily alleviate the challenge of finding more bus drivers for rural routes like those in Mascoma — which includes Canaan, Enfield, Dorchester, Grafton and Orange — it could make it easier for Butler’s to move drivers around as needed to serve other school districts, especially those that are located along the Connecticut River.
“It may not help with recruiting drivers necessarily, but it certainly would help us be able to spread the drivers that we do have around to different customers for sure,” Landon said in a phone interview this week.
Currently, if a bus driver certified in Vermont wants a New Hampshire certification, they have to go through a background check and — once that’s cleared — they have to do 10 hours of training in New Hampshire by a state-certified instructor, then take a written test to get school bus certificate, said Landon.
Getting the original Vermont certification takes eight hours and also requires a background check and written test.
It can take between 30 and 60 days for a certified Vermont bus driver to go through the New Hampshire certification process.
“It would help us because the locations that we have that are on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire, I could possibly share drivers quicker than I can now,” Landon said. For example, a driver based in White River Junction could then drive a route in Plainfield or Cornish, which Butler’s also serves, without having to redo their training in New Hampshire.
Mascoma Valley Regional School District Superintendent Amanda Isabelle, in a phone interview this week, called Oppel’s proposed legislation “exciting.”
Mascoma is still in need of one more bus driver and while there are currently people in training to fill that spot, the legislation would allow Vermont bus drivers to fill in on a substitute basis.
The dual state process “is absurd to me,” she said. “You’re already on a bus. You don’t need to come here to be trained to drive a bus.”
Mascoma now has three employees — the district’s special education director, a social worker and an administrative assistant in the special education department — going through the training process to be able to transport students in vans in case of an emergency.
Another Mascoma employee is in the process of obtaining a CDL so that they can become a substitute bus driver.
“We’ve had a lot of our employees step up and it’s much appreciated,” Isabelle said.
Oppel’s legislative service request for the bus driver bill has not been drafted into formal legislation and does not yet have a bill number.