Trump Names Derek Barrs to Transportation Department Post; He Will Leave Flagler School Board

Less than five months after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to a Flagler County School Board seat, where his presence helped restore a level of stability that had been lacking for two years, Derek Barrs will almost certainly leave the board for an appointment as administrator to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.




President Donald Trump nominated him to the post Tuesday. FMCSA is the lead federal agency regulating commercial vehicles. Barrs held a similar position with the Florida Highway Patrol previously and continued to work closely in the industry even after his appointment to the School Board. The political appointment requires Senate confirmation and could take weeks or months, though unlike 2017, the Trump administration has moved swiftly through its appointments. Until then, Barrs intends to continue serving on the School Board.

He learned of the nomination by text Tuesday morning.

“I’m extremely excited, I’m extremely nervous, and also scared all at the same time,” Barrs, who has never lived away from Florida in his 52 years, said in an interview this morning. “Those things will hopefully help me make be the best public servant I can be, as I feel like I’ve tried to be my entire life, putting people first, really looking at all sides of the issues and looking at policies that will affect everyone.”




Though it’s a political appointment, the responsibility is highly technical, focusing on rules and regulations from such things as truckers’ hours of service to autonomous vehicles to hazardous-material safety protocols. Barrs will have rule-making and rule-scrapping authority, albeit not arbitrarily of course. He will oversee a $1 billion budget and over 1,100 employees–significantly larger than the $30 million budget and 300 employees he oversaw in the similar post in Florida. He’ll report directly to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, with whom he met for half an hour in Washington recently.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about saving lives,” he said. “You can’t make decisions in a vacuum. You can’t work without the other sides of the the aisle, meaning all segments of the trucking industry and safety advocates and enforcement. You have to work together to come up with good policy.”

Though he knew about the nomination before Tuesday’s School Board workshop at 1 p.m. and the meeting at 6 p.m., Barrs chose not to speak of it publicly just then (his closing comments Tuesday evening ran the gamut of his usual immersion in school issues). He was not yet sure about the timeline, and he is loath to be a distraction. He told members of the board and Superintendent LaShakia Moore of the nomination before the meetings.

Colleagues and friends are reacting to his announcement with a mixture of excitement and regret–excitement for his opportunity, regret that he is leaving position he’d quickly made his own to the board’s advantage. Moore summed up the paradoxical response.




“I’m excited for the opportunity for him. I know he’s worked for a very long time in this field and this gives him the opportunity to serve at a different capacity,” the superintendent said this morning. “I’m disappointed for the district as he has been a great addition to the board and we will miss his leadership and his presence on the board, if he is confirmed into this new role.”

Barrs didn’t chair the School Board, but he might as well have. Moore described precisely how his presence affected the dynamics of what had been an undisciplined board often distempered by hot-headed leadership. “He has a this sense of calm because of his extensive knowledge of parliamentary procedure and Robert’s Rules of Order,” Moore said. “He does a really good job helping to keep the meetings flowing the way that they should flow. He’s very thoughtful and meticulous about the words he chooses to say and I think that helps all of us who sit with him to be more thoughtful.”

Moore noted his availability and presence in the community, being out and about at numerous events and at schools, writing handwritten notes to staffers, sending birthday wishes, “just human elements, a human touch that allows our staff to really see the board in a more accessible way,” Moore said. “Not that other board members don’t do that. But I think it’s a natural part of what he does.”

DeSantis appointed Barrs to the seat after Sally Hunt resigned just two years into her term. Barr’s departure will require yet another gubernatorial appointment. The district will soon begin that process. The appointee will be drawn from applicants.

If confirmed, Barrs will be the third local official recruited by or with direct ties to Trump’s administrations. Palm Coast City Council member Charles Gambaro served on Trump’s National Security Council toward the end of his first administration. Mike Waltz, who represented Flagler and parts of other counties in the 6th Congressional District since his election in 2018, was named Trump’s national security adviser last fall, though Waltz is now at the center of the administration’s most serious crisis yet after inviting a reporter to join a top-level policy group chat that discussed imminent military attacks.

[This is a developing story.]