Wakulla Transportation is looking to fill two driver positions after officially retaining its Community Transportation Coordinator designation for 2026-2031.
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The organization had served the Wakulla County community for over 35 years. The hiring push comes after months of uncertainty surrounding the possibility of losing the designation to Big Bend Transit. With the designation now secured, Wakulla Transportation can continue providing transportation services to neighbors who cannot drive themselves.
Shannon Dekle, the Transportation Operations Manager, said the additional drivers are needed because of the unpredictable nature of passenger scheduling. Drivers can cover around 200 miles a day, taking passengers to and from Tallahassee two to three times a day.
Dekle said the scheduling demands make extra staff essential.
"With the hours that we have during the day, we can only put so many people on a vehicle, and with their scheduling system, the scheduling systems, their times don't just match up. So there are random times when the clients have to go up, when they have to be picked up and be brought back, they can't. It's not just a straight we pick so many people up in the morning, take everybody to town and, you know, let them go where they have to go. Everybody has a set timing, and not all of the timing works together," Dekle said.
The unpredictability extends beyond scheduling. Appointments that are expected to last an hour can run significantly longer, requiring drivers to reroute on the fly.
"It's not everything's a perfect day we get to town, somebody's appointment that's supposed to be an hour is now three hours late, so now we have to reroute everybody in order to get that fixed, or, you know, we get them there, and five minutes later they're calling us and telling us they're ready, and we have, you know, so we have to reroute again to get them picked up and get them back home. So it's, it's an everyday situation on how that works," Dekle said.
Dekle said filling the positions will also benefit passengers by increasing schedule availability, and will help reduce the physical strain on current drivers by limiting how many trips each person makes per day.
Applications are available online and at the Senior Center.
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