Representative Mike Sparks urged the steering committee to support legislation to lower the state's minimum school bus driver age from 25 to 23 and sought the commission's endorsement as he moves the bill through Nashville. The committee voted to defer a recommendation for one month to allow staff and the representative to provide additional data.

Sparks said the change is intended to address a shortage of drivers while maintaining safety: “This state has a crisis. We're the most restrictive in the world. I can't make this stuff up,” Representative Mike Sparks said, advocating a move to age 23 as a compromise between the current 25 and the originally proposed 21.

The issue matters to commissioners because it implicates student safety, county liability and local workforce needs. Commissioner Wilson said the presentation did not provide enough evidence to conclude that older drivers cause more crashes and asked for specifics: whether the age data reflect only bus drivers, whether crashes were at-fault incidents, and the underlying counts of drivers and crashes by age group. “I will not be able to support this moving forward without the answer to some of these questions,” Wilson said.

David Settles, vice chairman of the local school board and a working bus driver, testified in favor of lowering the age, saying training and maturity matter more than chronological age: “With the proper training, you can employ a younger person to drive a school bus,” Settles said, adding that he received extensive training and that driver trainers can and do withhold certification for unsafe drivers regardless of age.

Commissioners also raised practical concerns about insurance and contracting. One commissioner asked how lowering the age could affect liability insurance costs, and requested that the county's risk management staff quantify any premium impacts and how an RFP for county-provided insurance would be handled if the age were changed.

After discussion, a commissioner moved to defer consideration for one month to gather the requested data and to seek comment from the Tennessee Department of Safety; the motion was seconded and passed by voice vote. The deferral leaves the committee's formal recommendation pending while staff and Representative Sparks work to provide the specific crash-attribution, driver-population and insurance information requested by commissioners.