School bus driver shortage to worsen with end of immigrant licensing program, operators say

Long Island’s school bus industry, already suffering from a driver shortage, will lose hundreds more drivers because of a Trump administration directive preventing immigrants with temporary residency from obtaining, or renewing, commercial driver’s licenses, officials said.

The recent announcement by the state Department of Motor Vehicles that its commercial driver’s license program for temporary residents is "indefinitely paused, including renewals," could have a cascading impact across Long Island. Bus companies said it will put decades-long bus drivers out of work and, in a worst-case scenario, push school districts to delay bell times so that buses could serve multiple schools with a depleted roster of operators.

"It’s tough right now. It’s just going to get a little tougher," said Thomas Smith, chief operating officer of Suffolk Transportation Services, the county’s largest school bus provider, which stands to lose about 150 of its 1,600 drivers because of the licensing change. "It’s sad. These are great people doing great work for the community."

The DMV’s move came in response to changes made late last year by the federal government barring most immigrants with temporary visas from obtaining commercial driver’s licenses, even while in the United States legally.

The change followed a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration audit saying that New York, and other large cities led by Democrats, were regularly renewing immigrant drivers' commercial licenses even after their temporary statuses expired. Federal officials ordered New York to immediately revoke every license illegally issued to "foreign drivers" and discontinue its immigrant CDL program, or they'd lose federal highway funding.

DMV officials said every applicant's legal status is verified and that they followed federal regulations, but have suggested they have no choice but to comply with the federal order.

Since the new policy has taken effect, those in the CDL program are losing their licenses as they come up for renewal. Asked whether they intend to revoke all immigrants' commercial driver's licenses immediately, DMV spokesman Tim O'Brien said in a statement: "We are not taking any action at this time as we engage with USDOT on their letter from last year."

Asked for comment on New York’s indefinite pause on the program, federal officials said it was evidence of the Trump administration "getting results."

"But until New York does everything required to get dangerous foreign drivers off our roads including revoking all illegally issued licenses, they are at risk of losing over $73 million in federal highway funding and potentially decertification of their CDL program," a DOT spokesperson said in a statement.

The Trump administration has sought to target so-called "non-domiciled" CDL programs following a series of high-profile truck crashes involving immigrant drivers. President Donald Trump brought up the issue at his recent State of the Union address, calling on Congress to bar "any state from granting commercial licenses to illegal aliens."

Carolyn Rinaldi, vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181, which represents 3,000 members on Long Island including school bus drivers, said she’s working with other labor organizations to try to persuade the Trump administration to reconsider the measure, which she said unfairly punishes legal residents of the United States because some drivers here illegally "fell through the cracks." Rinaldi described the mood among immigrant commercial drivers in New York as angry and scared.

"It just doesn't make sense," she said. "These are people's livelihoods, you know?"

Paul Mori, president of the industry advocacy group New York School Bus Contractors Association, said that in justifying their crackdown, federal officials "bring up accidents that had nothing to do with school buses, nothing to do with New York." Mori said about 5% of school bus drivers in the state stand to lose their licenses and their jobs because of the change. He estimated about 20,000 school bus drivers work on Long Island, meaning 1,000 of them would be put out of work.

Drivers who are properly issued a non-domiciled CDL are not ‘illegal aliens.’ They’re not illegal in any way," said Mori, client relations director for Beacon Mobility, the parent organization of Huntington Coach. "We’re losing a good group of people."

Long Island educators said the rule change would deepen an issue school districts have already been facing for some years.

"Workforce shortage for transportation drivers has been something that schools have been grappling with for many years, so this is yet another thing that will make it a little more difficult to recruit and retain some drivers for the workforce," said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

As for potential solutions if the trend continues, Vecchio said districts might have to consider consolidating routes, staggered openings, or looking at ways to increase wages to recruit more drivers.

So far, the impact of losing drivers because of the licensing changes has been phased in — drivers have been losing their licenses as they come up for renewal sincelate last year. But there’s concern that the state, under pressure from the federal government, will revoke all remaining non-domiciled CDLs at once before the end of the current school year. Smith said such a "ripcord" approach would have a devastating effect, and lead to such measures as including "modifications in routing."

"You’d have to adjust some schools to like a 9:30, 9:45 start, which folks don’t enjoy. But that’s really where you could reduce routes to help with big problems," Smith, the Suffolk Transportation Corp. COO, said.

School bus companies aren’t just affected by the loss of current drivers, but also from a drastic reduction in the pool of potential future drivers. Corey Muirhead, executive vice president of Guardian Bus Co. in Oceanside, said his company should be able to absorb the immediate impact of losing about eight of its 700 school bus drivers, but is "really hurt" by losing about 1 out of every 5 students in a commercial driver's license training program that it operates and relies on for job candidates. The program has about 20 students in it at any given time, Muirhead said.

"You need a robust pipeline to make sure that you’re going to get those people on the road for September. Now, if 20 people retire in June and I’ve lost 20% of my pipeline, yeah, I’m at a disadvantage," said Muirhead, noting that Long Island is already dealing with a school bus driver shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the popularization of other driving jobs, including as Amazon delivery workers and Uber drivers.

Despite the federal government’s directive, Muirhead said immigrant school bus drivers are properly vetted, "held to the same exact standards as every single school bus driver on the road," and are often members of the communities they serve.

Leaders of Nassau and Suffolk superintendent organizations said they are closely monitoring the situation but stressed that student safety and transportation are top priorities for districts.

Marie Testa, president of the Nassau County Council of School Superintendents and head of the North Bellmore school district, said it’s concerning when laws or decisions further impede on a problem many districts are already facing.

"The No.1 priority is always the safety of our students and having our students in school," she said. "So, whenever we're faced with situations such as this, we do work together to formulate plans or advocacy efforts to ensure that we are able to get our students to school safely."

For Timothy Eagen, superintendent of the Kings Park school district, the end of the non-domiciled CDL program has not been an issue for his district, which owns a fleet of 58 buses. But Eagen, who is also president of Suffolk's School Superintendents Association, said other county districts are dealing with the issue, which compounds the impact of existing driver shortages.

"But I am deeply concerned about the ability for school districts on Long Island to be able to get kids to and from school if the drivers just aren't available," Eagen said.