About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 2024)
Trump employs familiar playbook in tweaking his A investigators, inside,3a Tuesday, February 6,20241 GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA I gainesvilletimes.com iefucanI Honestly Local <8>. VISAl High inflation means many Americans are saddled with credit card debt, inside.4a Hall Schools changes bus driver pay policy BY BEN ANDERSON banderson@gainesvilletimes.com Hall County School District has changed its policy for how it pays bus drivers to pick up homeless students, which could lead to sharp pay cuts for some of its highest-paid drivers. The move comes after dis trict officials learned that one of their drivers, Teresa Young, earned nearly $150,000 last year by driving additional routes that included a large number of homeless students. Under the original policy, drivers were paid $15 each time they transported a homeless student to or from school, and they also received an additional hour of pay for each pickup or dropoff. Under the new policy, drivers will still receive an hour of pay for the first homeless student pickup, but they will now be paid hourly for any additional pickups, and they will no longer be paid $15 for each pickup. Young says she averaged about 25 homeless student pick ups per week last year, which translated to an additional 25 hours of pay. Those additional hours quickly pushed her into overtime and made her the high est-paid driver in the district by far. Young was earning the maximum pay for bus drivers, which is $36 per hour. Several other drivers earned well over $90,000. The average bus driver sal ary is about $20,000 for drivers who don't do any extra runs, and about $32,000 for drivers who do. The average teacher earns about $65,000 a year. Young has estimated that roughly one-third of her $150,000 salary last year came from picking up homeless stu dents. The Times has asked dis trict officials how much drivers like Young would have earned last year if the new policy was in effect. District officials maintain that no drivers or their supervi sors falsified any payroll docu ments. Everything was above board, they say. Under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, public school districts are required to provide transporta tion to homeless students. The old policy was meant to incen- tivize bus drivers to go above and beyond the 20 hours they are required to work each week, See Policy 13A ‘Sad to see it go’ Photos by Jim Massara The Times The Nichols Diner staff on their last day of business, Feb. 3. Alan Nichols, seated, is the diner’s owner, with wife Loretta Nichols behind him. Dawn LeCroy (left) and Harlee Griffin (right) man the counter on the last day of business at Nichols Diner. Nichols Diner served its final plate of chicken livers Saturday afternoon, Feb. 3, 2024, closing out two decades at its South Hall location. “We ran out of supplies at 2:15," business manager Grant Nichols told The Times. “Customers were still coming in and we had to tell them we were out." Beloved by customers for its hamburgers and milkshakes, the diner filled more than twice the number of orders expected on a Sat urday, according to Nichols, with in-store customers “out the door." At midday, drive-thru customers were lined up several hundred feet in front of the diner's entrance on Southland Drive. Some customers reported waiting in line for almost an hour. Debbie Mayfield of Flowery Branch, who recounted bringing her kids to Nichols Diner after foot ball and basketball games over the years, said the drive-thru wait was worth it. “We've gotta have our last cheeseburger," Mayfield said from her waiting SUV. “We've got a lot of memories here.” Loretta Nichols, wife of owner Alan Nichols and namesake for sister restaurant Loretta's Country Kitchen, told The Times she had “mixed emotions” about closing the diner. “It's highs, it's lows,” she said. “I've already cried about four times.” Customers came from all over, including as far away as North Car olina and Tennessee. See Nichols 13A Nichols Diner closes after two decades in business BY JIM MASSARA jimmassara@gainesvilletimes.com Man charged with arson in Gainesville house fire BY BEN ANDERSON banderson@gainesvilletimes.com A single-story home on the 2300 block of Athens Street in Gainesville was fully engulfed in flames around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, accord ing to Hall County Fire Rescue. One person suffered minor inju ries and was transported to Northeast Georgia Medical Center. “The flames have been extin guished and crews located all remaining hot spots,” Fire Rescue spokeswoman Kimberlie Ledsinger said in a news release. Hall County authorities arrested Steven Barfield, 55, Saturday and charged him with first-degree arson after added help from the State Fire Marshal's Office. The state office's K9 was used to detect “if accel erants were present at the scene,” though the fire department did not release any further information. Barfield Provided by Hall County Fire Rescue The State Fire Marshal Office’s K9 was used to detect if accelerants were present at the scene of a fire Saturday, Feb. 3 on Athens Street. Hall population could hit 293,000 by 2055, consultant says BY JEFF GILL jgill@gainesvilletimes.com Hall County's population could hit nearly 293,000 by 2055, according to a firm that’s helping local officials with an updated long-range traffic plan. “Some (projections) were lower and some were quite a bit higher, but we thought that was a pretty sound number right now,” said Steve Cote of RS&H, an Atlanta-based consulting firm, at a recent transportation planning meeting. The latest population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau shows Hall County had 212,692 people, as of July 1, 2022, or a 4.7% increase from 203,136 in 2020. At the 2.6% growth rate between 2021 and 2022, Hall’s population could be on pace for 218,222 people by July 1,2023. Hall’s current long-range traffic plan, which was updated in 2020, estimates that Hall County's population for 2050 was 383,214. Cote didn't say why the new pro jection is so much smaller, but he did say, “These (numbers) are going to be updated in five years. It's a data point and it helps us out, but it's not the end- all of everything.” Joseph Boyd, transportation planning director for the Gainesville-Hall Met ropolitan Planning Organization, Hall's lead transportation planning agency, said RS&H's estimate “did seem on the lower end to me.” However, RS&H “looked at various sources and felt that it needed to at least be semi-close to the latest estimates from the state since (the Georgia Department of Transportation) is the one running our travel demand model.” The state's estimate for Hall's popula tion by 2055 is 295,672. Population estimates “may be on the lower end to what growth rate we are actually seeing, but the good news is that we have to update this every five years, so we'll take a look again in a few years and adjust up if needed,” Boyd said “It is only an estimate and the pro jected numbers do not affect our current funding for projects.” See Population 13A
