MILWAUKEE - You paid for it: the TODAY’S TMJ4 I-Team found taxpayers shell out big bucks each time a Milwaukee County bus driver gets jumped on the job.

Attacks on Milwaukee County bus drivers have gotten a lot of coverage lately. Some say it's because of the video we get now from onboard cameras. Others say it’s just a sign of the times. Either way, every time it happens, you pay for it.

Last May, a masked man jumped onboard the Route 76 bus and started swinging. The driver wound up on the hospital. While that driver's physical injuries have healed, Greg Hamilton wasn't so lucky. The beating Hamilton caught in October, 2006, while behind the wheel of a Milwaukee County bus, left him with constant tremors and unable to work.

"I fall down pretty frequently at home and that scares my son," said a shaking Hamilton. "My son is 13, and my wife is afraid to leave me a lot. It's just, your whole life changed in a couple minutes."

The Milwaukee County Transit System's own records show Hamilton is one of nearly 30 drivers who have been attacked in just the last two-and-a-half years.

The I-Team asked MCTS spokeswoman, Jackie Janz, whether the company thinks it has a security problem.

"We always work on our security, and if you look at all of the things that we have done, the incidences have gone down,” Janz said.

While the number of driver attacks might drop this year, from 2006 to 2007, the number of attacks increased by 33 percent.

"As long as there's crime in our community, our buses are not immune to it," admitted Janz

The I-Team found taxpayers aren't immune from the cost.

"It's incredible how much money taxpayers lose," Hamilton exclaimed during a recent interview.

"It's those unseen costs, the medical costs, the workman's comp, the lost time. These are things that we're paying for, that we shouldn't be paying for," explained Lamar Amos-Sikora, Assistant Legislative Director for the bus drivers' union, Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 998.

Since January 2006, MCTS says the company, and therefore taxpayers, have shelled out close to $550,000 to cover those costs for drivers who were attacked on the job.

"It goes back to the old adage, an ounce of prevention, equals a pound of cure," said Amos-Sikora.

The ATU Local 998 is now urging MCTS to step up security by pushing for more police patrols and full driver shields for the buses.

"If you just look at if they would put up that Plexiglas shield, the workman's comp cases, the money the taxpayers are paying for that, would be gone," Hamilton said. "The assaults and the mental and physical abuse on the drivers would be gone."

On Wednesday, MCTS will ask the Milwaukee County Board for money to test full driver shields on some of its buses. In the meantime, these attacks don't seem to be affecting rider ship. The bus company said it has seen an 8 percent across the board increase this year.