After the recession slowed the Virginia-based Williamsburg-James City (WJC) Schools' ability to regularly replace aging school buses, Superintendent Steven Constantino has proposed a plan to retire old buses systematically.
During recent budget presentations, Constantino laid out a five-year, $4.95 million plan that would phase in the purchase of several buses each year. Existing buses would be retired when they are 15 years old, conforming to state recommendations.
The WJC proposal would start with four new buses in 2015, nine each in 2016 and 2017, and ten each in 2018 and 2019. It assumes a cost of $107,000 per bus in fiscal 2015, and factors in 3 percent inflation each year after that.
According to chief financial officer Terry Stone, WJC last budgeted for new buses in 2009, when it included $750,000 in the operating budget. Since then the school division has purchased buses only with year-end funds in its operating budget, and between 2009 and 2013, the school division replaced a total of 57 buses. It owns 154 buses, of which 121 are in regular use each day.
Stone said a compelling argument can be made for creating a bus replacement system funded within the capital budget rather than the operating budget.
"Those funds are identified for that use. I think that keeps it in the forefront," she said.
Constantino said that when the recession hit, school administrations "had to start cutting, cutting, cutting," and he said one of the decisions made in WJC Schools before he was hired was to slash funds for replacement buses.
"When I arrived in 2011, I told the board that I thought that was a bad idea. It's like fire trucks and police cars and ambulances," he said. "You just have to have them. You can't just not replace buses."
Constantino said he felt the division had finally reached a point where it could "heal" the cuts that were made -- hence, the bus replacement idea.
Stone said according to the 2014 state purchasing plan, regular capacity buses cost $97,323 and special services buses cost $109,625. Those totals include special equipment, such as two-way radios that each carry a $5,000 price tag.
In York Schools, which uses the same bus types as WJC, spokeswoman Katherine Goff said regular-capacity buses cost around $83,000 and special services buses cost $94,000 under the state purchasing plan. Those prices do not include the extra equipment.
York operates 160 buses to serve its 23 schools, and conducts an annual review to make sure the buses meet specific criteria -- up to 14 years of age, 200,000 miles and current mechanical condition -- to keep them in service. Goff said that "a bus could meet one criteria and still remain in use," giving an example of keeping a 14-year-old bus that is in sound mechanical condition and has not yet reached 200,000 miles.
WJC spokeswoman Betsy Overkamp-Smith said based on the last 14 school buses that were replaced, WJC buses average about 241,000 miles in their lifetime. More than half of the 154 buses owned by WJC had racked up more than 150,000 miles. The average age of a current WJC bus is 7.7 years.
"The WJCC fleet is well-maintained and safe, but generally has high mileage," she said in an email, noting that because the schools are scheduled in multiple tiers, buses average 18,900 miles at the end of each school year.
Compared to a municipal bus fleet, Kevan Danker, executive director of the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority, said the useful life of a school bus is longer, and their mileage won't be as high. WATA buses, which cost around $430,000 apiece, are in use anywhere between four and 12 years each, and will have more than 500,000 miles when they are retired.
The school division hasn't performed an analysis of how much money it winds up spending on service, but Overkamp-Smith likened it to cars that need more maintenance as they age. "You could anecdotally put those together," she said.
Constantino said while the WJC bus fleet is in good condition overall, "We can't just sail along."
"I don't want to be in the position to have a bus problem and find out the bus should have been taken off the road two years earlier," he said. "I don't think this community wants that. We really need to focus on what to do."
Copyright 2014 - The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg
