Uncertainty over the availability of previously promised federal funding has some local school districts rethinking their plans to buy electric buses.
The unpredictability of the funding is among several reasons Plum Superintendent Rick Walsh cited for pulling the plug on the district’s plan to purchase 25 electric buses.
“With the change in leadership with the federal government through the change in direction and some of those IRS rebates, we don’t believe they’ll be there,” Walsh said at a school board meeting Tuesday. “We believe there’s a shift in direction.”
Plum was among several Pittsburgh-area school districts that received funding through the Environmental Protection Agency’s clean school bus rebate program for electric buses. Plum was awarded $5 million.
Other districts receiving funding were Pittsburgh Public, $6.46 million; Woodland Hills, $7.37 million; Bethel Park, $2 million; South Fayette, $1.4 million; Moon Area, $1.2 million; Baldwin-Whitehall, $800,000; Pine-Richland, $600,000; and Kiski Area, $75,000.
Bethel Park also has opted not to proceed, district spokesman James Cromie said.
“After much discussion, our school board was uncomfortable with the technology, longevity and durability, so we have moved off that project for now,” he said.
Baldwin-Whitehall is among those still moving forward. Superintendent Randal A. Lutz said his district will get two electric buses. Baldwin-Whitehall has about 40 buses in the fleet it owns and operates.
The district is getting two, instead of four, buses as stated with the EPA award, because of the cost of the vehicles and the electrical services needed, Lutz said.
Woodland Hills contracts primarily with First Student Transportation, which applied for the funding with the intention of using it for the district’s routes, a district spokesman said.
“First Student is actively monitoring the evolving situation with the EPA and will continue to engage with it, Congress and other stakeholders to deploy electric vehicles for the school districts and communities we serve,” First Student spokeswoman Jen Biddinger said.
In December, Walsh reported that Plum had obtained grants and tax credits totaling a little more than $7.2 million toward its vehicles in its effort to get as much of the cost covered as possible. The district operates its own bus fleet.
The board also had approved a roughly $10.7 million purchase order with Highland Electric Fleets for 25 buses, reflecting a cost of up to $427,000 per bus, the highest price the district had seen. A clause in the contract allows the district to cancel it.
No board members spoke in favor of going forward with the purchase. Board President Angela Anderson said the board “fully supports the recommendation to hold back on procuring the electric fleet.”
“Our board remains fiscally responsible and places high value on the importance of spending money thoughtfully, while we simultaneously endeavor to advance our district in the best interest of students,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “In this case, we know that progress is not always easy. And while there are numerous benefits to adding clean energy vehicles to our fleet, we believe pausing this initiative is in our best interest for the immediate future.”
The board will vote to cancel the purchase order when it meets Feb. 25.
District officials have said pursuing electric buses provides a way to use grant money instead of local tax dollars to get new buses. Because no grants are available for diesel buses, their cost is borne fully by local taxpayers.
“On paper, it looks like a great opportunity financially of using alternative revenue in order to offset some of our expenses in our overall budget,” Walsh said. “What we found is sometimes what’s on paper, sometimes it looks too good to be true.
”What we discovered are some concerns as we start talking to bus garage, mechanics, drivers.”
Among concerns cited by Walsh are the cost of running power to the district’s bus garage on Greensburg Road — estimated at $2.2 million — and the cost of batteries and maintenance.
He also learned that other bus companies typically have an additional employee dedicated to managing the charging of the buses and related tasks.
Walsh recounted a visit last week to a transportation company in Washington County that services three school districts. It had 30% of its electric buses “in the shop.”
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“I’ve said on several occasions, sometimes the cutting edge is the bleeding edge,” he said. “We believe the technology is still new. What I found in talking to other external partners is that they had diesel buses backing up their electric buses, which doesn’t make sense because part of the rebate was to sell off our older buses.”
The district also found that something as simple and common as a two-hour delay could be problematic with electric buses because there may not be enough time for the vehicles to fully recharge between runs.
“We want to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars,” Walsh said. “Why did we initially pursue this? Because we thought it would have been a financial benefit to our community and our local taxpayers. It doesn’t mean that we are going to stop looking at other alternative sources of revenue. We may come forward with looking at other options down the road.
“At the heart of it is keeping our local community in mind in regards to how can we offset some of the costs moving forward and being fiscally responsible.”