Springville, N.Y. (WBEN) - The price of fuel at the pumps has affected many in Western New York and across the nation, but it is certainly taking its toll on local school districts and how they handle bus routes and transportation operations.
Springville-Griffith Institute Central School District superintendent James Bialasik says they have seen the price of diesel fuel for school buses double in a year's time.
"If we go back one year, the cost to fill our large diesel tank here in Springville was about $16,000. In April, that went up to about $25,000. Our most recent fill-up, just about a month ago, was up to $35,000. So it's gone up fairly dramatically," said Bialasik in an interview with WBEN.
Other school districts like the Iroquois Central School District have also felt the impact of skyrocketing diesel prices this year.
"Over the last couple years, really, but most recently, the spikes in diesel fuel has gotten us to a point where we're very concerned about, first-and-foremost, budgeting to be able to make sure we have enough to be able to complete what we need to do," said Iroquois transportation director Eric Nagel. "After that, it's really a matter of cost of the bus, as far as everything's going up - cost of tires. It's not even just diesel fuel. It's cost of anything made with rubber, transportation of any goods, parts that we have to do. So the whole operation really is hurting, because of the price of of diesel fuel and fuel all together."
Springville has also tried this year to build some contingencies into its budget to account for the increase in diesel fuel prices, but Bialasik admits there's no way of knowing how much higher the prices are going to get.
"We plan for it the best we can, but it certainly does have an impact on our operations otherwise, because we have to fill our buses up. We have to pick up kids every day," Bialasik said with WBEN.
As Nagel looks at his budgets to try to make sure the district has enough for the remainder of the school year, he says those numbers are significantly dropping quickly.
"We are certainly doing more with our buses than we ever have before, so they're running more-and-more," Nagel said with WBEN.
Both school districts cover significant ground with their routes to pick up and drops off kids on a daily basis. Springville is the largest district in Erie County, covering 141 square miles that includes the Village of Springville, the towns of Concord, Collins, Colden and parts of other surrounding neighborhoods. Iroquois is right behind Springville, covering 84 square miles that includes towns like Elma, Marilla, Wales and Aurora.
If districts are looking for ways to save some money going forward, Bialasik says adjusting routes is something that is fairly difficult to accomplish.
"The routes are pretty well established, because it is such a large geographic region. We need to go where the kids are and be able to pick them up at their homes or at their centralized stops," he explained. "The adjustments really can't happen there. They would have to come from some other place in the budget."
Nagel believes the Iroquois district will have to, at some point in time, take measures with being able to find out where they're going to be able to come up with such funds, and how long it's going to last.
"We have to take a lot into consideration in order to make sure we're making the right proper decisions before affecting the public, but we'll try to do everything we can to try to make sure that we're running the most efficiently. And I think that's another key, is to make sure your transportation departments are running efficient transportation so they're not wasting miles or wasting fuel getting places where we don't really need to be, or maybe using one bus versus two on field trips. Things like that," Nagel said.
As part of New York State's all-electrification push, there was a mandate that pushed all school districts across the state to go with a fleet of all-electric buses by 2032. However, back in May, that mandate was pushed back by five years, with schools now required to complete a full fleet conversion by 2040.
The Springville district currently has two electric buses as part of its fleet, and has been operating them. However, with some of the district's longer runs, any electric bus may be impractical to run efficiently.
"For the shorter runs, they do work and they do operate on those. There have been some consistency issues with the buses, so that's something that we're trying to work out, as far as the technology is concerned," Bialasik noted. "We want to make sure that our buses can be reliable because, again, not picking up students in the morning or dropping them off in the afternoon is just not an option."
As for Iroquois, schools superintendent Doug Scofield says the district recently had a study done to look at the feasibility of using electric buses, and it wasn't to the benefit of the district.
"I think the whole community would agree with me when I say to buy a vehicle that costs, at least, twice as much - really it's more like four times as much to do the same job - is not an effective use of funds," Scofield said with WBEN. "So with the diesel buses, even with the gas going up - I'll say maybe the price has doubled since last year - that quadrupling a cost of something is not offsetting the price of diesel."
