For KART Manager Terry Crawford, it's just another winter when he's got part of his staff getting behind the wheel—but not necessarily the staff that was hired to do so.
Winter bus drivers are hard to find, and with the season fast approaching, KART is still several bus drivers short.
"Nobody's coming in (to apply)," he told the board during a meeting Wednesday, Nov. 15. "We probably need four to five drivers. We just lost a winter driver. He went to Aspen, Colo. They offered him a $300 place to live, a ski pass, and he's making more money than he was making here."
KART bus drivers typically make between $13.50 and $15 per hour.
To make up for the lack of drivers, Crawford is driving routes, as are his operations manager, a parts manager, an administrative assistant and a maintenance staff member.
"We've got five people right there," Crawford said.
While all are CDL-licensed drivers, putting them on routes takes them away from the duties they were hired to do.
Crawford said it is "pretty standard" to be short winter drivers.
"There's been years we've gone into February without having a full staff," Crawford said. "The buses have to run. Somebody's got to be out there running them."
Personnel is one of many issues the KART board is attempting to address since its merger with commuter bus service PEAK last May.
"I feel we've been a little slow in our start up," said board Chairman Peter Everett. He proposed forming subcommittees on service development and marketing, personnel, and performance indicators.
"(That would) set the stage for the direction we'd like to go," Everett said. "There's so many policy things that staff needs help with. We need a lot of thinking through at a policy level what those are."
Everett is an advocate of creating a new identity for the merged entity.
"One of the first things we need is a new image," he said. That could include a new name, new graphics on buses that merge the PEAK and KART identities.
South valley riders could be confused when buses that say "KART" on them pick them up on PEAK commuter routes, he noted.
Board member Blair Boand said KART shouldn't forget about the basics.
"I feel like we're putting too much emphasis on packaging rather than the nuts and bolts of the thing," he said.
Ketchum resident and KART rider Chris Decarufel echoed that sentiment, saying she'd like to put service first.
"The money would be better spent on the bus system rather than graphics," she said by phone Monday. "It would be great to see more buses during slack as opposed to putting the money into graphics."
Determining what issues to focus on has led to slow decision making.
"This discussion has happened at every meeting for the past three months," said Virginia Egger, a non-voting representative of Sun Valley. "That's the wheel spinning."
Board member Ron Parsons said part of the trouble is that, while the board is trying to be countywide, not everyone is participating in the discussion.
"We're trying to do marketing and branding for a segment of the municipalities that aren't even here," Parsons said.
Hailey representative Tom Helen said he'd bring the issue up at the city's Dec. 4 goal-setting workshop. Helen does not sit on the board because Hailey, like the city of Carey, has not signed the joint agreement.
