BATON ROUGE - The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board voted Thursday to give $9,500 in stipends to bus drivers, transportation aides and mechanics.

Overall, with other previous stipends, employees will see a pay jump by a total of $12,500. This raises the starting salary of bus drivers from $19,150 to $32,150.

Drivers are campaigning for a permanent raise rather than stipends, though, and that may still lead to a sickout Friday by bus drivers, leading to the cancellation of the school day.

The school board voted on this after struggling with personnel shortages during the first week of the 2023-24 school year.