Brookfield Local School District’s bus mechanic will remain a Brookfield employee but, starting July 1, he will spend more of his time in Liberty than in Brookfield under a shared services agreement approved by both school districts.
The agreement, which the Brookfield Board of Education approved April 22 and Liberty’s in March, is the first formal agreement to come from a shared services study of Brookfield, Liberty and Mathews school districts performed by the Ohio Auditor of State. This issue came to the fore because Liberty was losing its mechanic and the study concluded that transportation was an area with a high potential for the districts to save money.
promoLiberty will pay 55 percent of the mechanic’s salary and benefits, and Brookfield will pay 45 percent.
“They (Liberty) have an older fleet,” Brookfield Supt. Toby Gibson said of why the mechanic will spend more time in Liberty.
“He’ll split his time through the course of the week,” Gibson said. “I want to say it’s 22 hours in Liberty and 18 in Brookfield. We’ll create a schedule for that as we move forward.”
The schedule will change according to the needs of the districts, Gibson said. “We’ll work things out.”