Prince William County’s bus service is putting a planned restructuring on hold, now that some of its employees are claiming that the job cuts associated with the plan may be racially motivated.
Senior managers with the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission were hoping to lay off 12 full-time employees and one part-time staffer, and shift some of the tasks they performed to the commission’s contractor, FirstTransit, Inc. That move could save the commission about $667,000 over the next fiscal year, and PRTC leaders planned to use that money (in part) to create 11 new positions for the bus service, which runs the “OmniRide” and “OmniLink” bus lines in the county.
The group’s Board of Commissioners was set to vote on the plan at its Dec. 7 meeting, but it unanimously voted to defer any consideration of the move until it receives the results of an independent investigation into an anonymous letter sent to the commission alleging a culture of “systemic and institutional racism” at PRTC.
