Keep his job, fire him, demote him, or promote him?

[HiloJulie]

Steven was not driving his county vehicle he normally drives and takes home. He was on vacation for the holidays.

Well, that’s good to hear in this case. Maybe it may have been not so good if he was not on vacation!

What is more concerning is how his poor decision is going to cost the tax payers. There is a union grievance for CDL training for employees under Department of Environmental Management as there is a shortage of drivers. They are supposed to promote within first. Now the county will have to either let him slide or have to move Doug the trainer from other department and let things fall to the side in the other department or hire an outside third party to do the training. Past practice with CDL drivers getting DUI’s was suspension without pay till they received their license back.
There are other options as far as temporarily assigning someone to his position, however there is no one available as job security was kept a priority. So ultimately his poor decisions will cost the tax payers money and county employees potential opportunities to make more money to support their families. Also, don’t forget no drivers audits for current or new hires until this debacle is addressed by Mayor Kimo Alameda.

So, what is the cause of the CDL driver shortage?

Is it a lack of qualified people to take the job, or a lack of qualified people to train, test, certify etc, or both? I have a distant thought of a room full of trained CDL drivers at the DMV in line to get their CDL license and the lady behind the counter rejecting their certified birth certificate because she can’t feel the “bumps” of the embossed seal! (Happened to me – although not for a CDL license, just my regular one!)

Or, is it a lack of management desire to spend the time required to recruit CDL drivers?

We saw this with the school bus driver issue before and now from what I think I am hearing you say, the County Department of Environmental Management has the same problem.

I am assuming County CDL drivers would be Union represented, unlike the school bus drivers, thus I would assume the wages and benefits would be fairly good, I just don’t understand this seemingly constant CDL driver shortage issue here.

Now I do understand that CDL licenses require more or less a spotless driving record as well as DOT random drug testing, so is it possible that the “sacrifice” any potential CDL driver has to make for this type of employment not worth the wages/benefits being paid?

Or is it all of the above?

At any event, welcome to PunaWeb!