JERSEY: District 100 to purchase new buses
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By Steven Spencer
The Jersey Community Unit School District 100 School Board approved a bid for new school buses at their regular board meeting last Thursday, Jan. 18.
Director of Transportation and Facilities Cory Breden said the district had two bids with the best bid coming from Central States Bus Sales for $776,148.85. That price includes five 29 passenger buses and one 18 passenger handicap accessible bus with a five year lease to own plan, and after reimbursements the total cost for the district would be around $250,000.
“We are reimbursed based on the principal, we are not reimbursed on the interest,” Breden said. “With reimbursement the total outlay for the district would be $251,169.11.”
Breden noted that it isn’t necessarily a fun purchase but it’s a large district and in need of new buses. One of the district’s current buses did not pass inspection, there is another that is probably going to fail inspection, and four buses with over 270,000 miles.
Because of the state of the current buses and the trade in value, it was stated that the district will more than likely sell the buses or salvage them rather than trade in.
“I feel like we could probably sell these on our own,” Breden said. “The most that we were going to get for these was around $4,000 for the best bus that we were looking to trade in.”
With such a large district and need for buses, School Board President Greg Brown said the reimbursement plan has seen great results in the district, keeping the fleet in good shape.
“I think it’s imperative to say that we were not getting reimbursement on buses before Mr. Tuttle came into the district,” School Board President Greg Brown said. “We owned all of our buses, we were not getting reimbursed. Mr. Tuttle implemented the plan, that we are getting reimbursed on these buses and our fleet is, in my opinion, the best fleet that we’ve had in years and years. Even our mechanics say it. So I think that it’s extremely imperative that we continue down this path of trying to get the reimbursement but also to keep our fleet intact. We just don’t want to go back to that where we have to rebuild again.”
When the district gets the new buses is still to be determined with production moving slowly. The board purchased a 53 passenger bus not long ago that the district is still waiting on.
“These are difficult to get,” Breden said. “The reason we haven’t received that is because the district that is trading that 53 passenger bus in has not received their new one.”
Mr. Tuttle said the delay in production of bus chassis is a result of the recent automotive strike.
“They think it’s going to take two years to get back to full production,” Tuttle said.
After their discussion, the board unanimously approved the purchase.
