VIDALIa &8212; Mental exhaustion evident, bus drivers and Concordia Parish school officials walked away from Tuesday night&8217;s special board meeting with a compromise everyone hopes will stick.

The operational allowance &8212; gas money &8212; approved at another special meeting last Tuesday is the same, only now it&8217;s multiplied by 1.5. In other words, the drivers will be paid one-way mileage plus half the return trip.

Drivers were hoping for two-way mileage. The state, and the district have always paid only one-way.

&8220;We can survive it,&8221; said James Cockerham, president of the bus driver&8217;s association. &8220;We can live with it and not go in the hole.&8221;

The unanimous vote in favor of the revised operational allowance Tuesday came after nearly two hours of executive session. Cockerham was included in much of that session.

The meeting was the sixth in four weeks in which board and district representatives sat down with drivers to discuss the allowance.

The first increase was approved and agreed upon last Tuesday. A Thursday explanatory meeting resulted in the drivers&8217; discovery that only one-way was being paid. As a result, 27 drivers called in sick Friday morning, leaving children with no ride to school.

Superintendent Kerry Laster said she and district staff worked non-stop, into the night Monday and all day Tuesday to come up with a workable solution.

A smaller crowd of drivers than at previous meetings was on hand Tuesday to hear the solution, and crowd comments were at a minimum.

&8220;I think the board has worked as closely as they can and we have worked as closely as we can,&8221; Cockerham said. &8220;We have come to a place that we can survive.&8221;

The allowance will change one cent per mile for every seven cents gas prices go up or down. Diesel drivers will receive one cent more than gas drivers until diesel prices equalize with gas prices.

The allowance will only be paid on days driven each month for nine months. No operational allowance will be given in the summer months.

The plan approved last week gave the drivers an allowance check in July and August.

Under the new plan if gas is $2.52, a gas bus driver will receive $0.41 per mile times 1.5 for a total of $0.6150 per mile.

The operational allowance is in addition to the state allowance and the drivers&8217; salaries.

Drivers, who own their own buses, also have to pay for repairs and upkeep from the operational allowance. They&8217;ve said at all early meetings this month that spiking gas prices were forcing them to dip into their salaries.