Longview ISD bus barn would be replaced through bond election

Jo Lee Ferguson wishes she kept her maiden name - Hammer - because it was perfect for a reporter. She’s a local girl who loves writing about her hometown. She and LNJ Managing Editor Randy Ferguson have two children and a crazy husky.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories detailing renovations and additions that would be funded by Longview ISD's proposed November bond election.

This is "The Palace."

That's how Wayne Guidry, Longview ISD's assistant superintendent for business and finance, and Transportation Coordinators Darryl Dans and John Mathis introduce the approximately 1,000-square-foot building at 1111 E. Young St.

It's more than a bit of a misnomer — or maybe someone's sarcastic description of this building — but no one seems to know when or how it got its name.

Next to Longview ISD's administrative offices, the bus barn is behind the main building at the front of the property where the district's maintenance and transportation administration is located.

It's the place where some 100 drivers, mostly women, gather twice a day, at 5:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. each weekday, to get their bus keys and information about any route changes or other issues. It's where they clock in and out.

And it has two bathrooms. It's something Guidry said he's long heard complaints about.

It's just one of the reasons Longview ISD has placed replacement of that facility on its November bond election.

The total debt proposal is for almost $360 million, broken into two propositions. Proposition A is for almost $292 million and includes about $7.3 million for a new "bus barn," as it's called, including expanding parking. The new facility the district is considering, if voters approve Proposition A, would be about 12 times as big as the current one, although none of those plans are final.

"It's to a point, a lot of people don't even come in. They'll wait," Dans said, talking about bus drivers as they're starting their routes and waiting to clock in on one of the four time clocks that district placed inside The Palace.

"They'll sit on their bus. They'll sit outside."

Drivers will "cram together" before starting their shifts when it's cold or raining, he said. In February, when there was ice on the ground, an employee fell and hit her head inside the building.

"We were so stacked in here that her foot got caught," Dans said.

He said the facility is used by about 110 employees, with a dispatch office right next to where drivers gather. It's not large enough, Dans explained, for the maps that would normally be located in a dispatch office.

It can get hard to hear radio traffic, or phone calls that come in on three lines from parents, when bus drivers are in the driver's area right outside the dispatch office, Dans said. There also isn't a place to store bus keys as securely as the district would like in the current facility.

"The goal is, if the bond passes is to make the dispatch room bigger, away from the drivers' lounge," Dans said. The new facility is proposed to have a 250-square-foot dispatch office.

A small storage closet that contains cleaning products and other items for the buses also is part of the building. More storage is in what is the current main transportation office at the front of the property.

The space, Dans said, is too small for everyone to meet if they need to. That means they have to reserve a space elsewhere at the district's administrative offices. Those meetings have to be scheduled in advance and involve getting all the necessary supplies for the meeting and all the drivers to a different location.

As Dans spoke, Guidry motioned to a computer sitting on a wooden box on the wall. The mouse that goes with it was sitting on a water fountain next to it. Drivers use it to check time sheets and paychecks, Dans said.

"This is what we've been dealing with," he said.

If Proposition A is approved, the main building at the front of the property would remain and become solely the district's maintenance headquarters. Transportation administration would move into the new facility once it is constructed.

Jo Lee Ferguson wishes she kept her maiden name - Hammer - because it was perfect for a reporter. She’s a local girl who loves writing about her hometown. She and LNJ Managing Editor Randy Ferguson have two children and a crazy husky.