Guam - It's a daily battle at the Department of Public Works to bring close to 40,000 of the island's public and private school children to and from school. But it's not just busses DPW's lacking - they're also short bus drivers and bus stops.

DPW is down another 10 busses. Why? Because mechanics can't make repairs if parts aren't readily available on island. According to DPW deputy director Carl Dominguez, the summer months will provide the agency with much needed relief. "It isn't an issue of ordering the parts - it's an issue of getting the parts to Guam, because our busses are that old vendors don't stock the parts on Guam so they have to be ordered from off-island. And especially the engines because they're so big they'd be very expensive to fly in. They have to be shipped in and that takes some time," said Dominguez.

That brings today's count to 105 operating school busses, what Dominguez says is far from DPW's ideal situation. "We need roughly 178 busses. Obviously we're surviving with busses in the 105 range right now, but the reason we're able to do that is because we do multiple runs," he added/

A single bus driver can make up to four trips in the morning and four trips in the afternoon. But even if there were enough school busses, there aren't enough drivers. Dominguez said, "Even if we had 178 busses today, we only have 125 drivers today, so we'd have busses sitting around anyway and we would need more school bus drivers."

DPW is also short 100 bus stops despite 65 new wooden shelters built by the Guam Trades Academy with the help of past legislation that provided $100,000 for materials. Dominguez says there are also concerns regarding street lights as some students are at bus shelters early in the morning before the sun comes out. Because there is no leeway in DPW's budget to provide additional lights, DPW is working with the Mayors Council of Guam to relocate existing streetlights.

There is some hope for DPW as the agency anticipates $1.28 million in federal funding, which could cover the costs for 8 new, bigger busses that could mean fewer trips for bus drivers.

Dominguez says the next two and a half months of summer will allow the agency to bring the bus fleet back up to 130 operating busses and allow time to train and certify new drivers. Looking ahead, DPW is not sure what to expect for next year. The Guam Education Board recently voted to add two classes to the bell schedule, which may augment school dismissal times.