Although the Cardinal school district is small in enrollment, there is a lot of ground for a school bus to cover in overall area and several school buses have reached the end of their engine life in the past few years. The district continued reinforcing its bus fleet by purchasing a new bus with a $45,000 grant through the School Bus Purchase Program.
“It is always very helpful when we can secure outside funding for needs and the transportation fleet,” school treasurer and Chief Fiscal Officer Terry Armstrong told The Weekly Villager on June 14. “The bus fleet was rather aging just a few years ago and the district started to do some replacing. I will tell you every one of those buses that went out of commission had over 200,000 miles on it so this was really helpful.”
In the last two years, the district has replaced five of the 12 buses in their fleet, with the latest one having just been delivered.
He said that once mileage on a bus exceeds 200,000, the cost of maintenance to keep it in commission increases substantially. In the past, the district had purchased new buses by combining resources from their general fund and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief and American Rescue Plan funds.
Armstrong praised the initiative of the transportation department and district for springing into action once it was decided that they needed to purchase newer buses.
“I know our transportation supervisor spends a lot of time to try and maximize distance and routes to be more efficient and now we have partnered with Chardon schools,” he added. “We do a shared service with them for mechanic work and they have been very good as well with keeping our buses on the road.”
Although the district has kept their buses up-to-date by frequently replacing the older models, most of the money acquired from the ESSER ARP fund went into staffing and school programs to address any lost learning opportunities that students may have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. Armstrong added that the program was discontinued just this past school year, with September being the deadline to use the rest of the money from that fund.
Without the use of the School Bus Purchase Program grant, Armstrong said the district would have to purchase a bus entirely through the general fund.
Fortunately, the State of Ohio instituted a new grant program through the School Bus Purchase Program, which allowed districts to apply for grants to purchase new buses in 2022.
“The State had all of the districts pull their data on mileage of your school buses and ages of your school buses and did whatever they do to create a matrix so they told the districts that this is what you are eligible for,” Armstrong noted.
He said that because so many school districts applied for a grant the State had a shortage of buses, so it extended the deadline into 2023. The district stayed informed of the rolling deadline and was awarded a $45,000 grant this year.
“Obviously if we can use outside funding, we don’t have to tap into our general fund which mostly comes from local taxpayers and the State of Ohio so that enables us to put that money in the classroom so that is very helpful,” Armstrong added.
One requirements for qualifying for the grant was that if a district did receive one, it had to put one of its existing buses out of commission. Cardinal’s newest bus has been delivered and the transportation department is planning the routes for the upcoming school year.
Although the fleet consists of only 12 buses, Armstrong credited the transportation department for maintaining the quality of each one.
“We just got our annual bus inspection and all of our buses have passed,” he said. “That does not always happen at every district right away so we feel really good about where our transportation department is.”
Right now, the district’s bus fleet is at full strength but Armstrong acknowledged that they would have to look at purchasing new buses in the next few years.
“We are hopeful that down the road the State will provide some more school bus grants to help schools because we did upgrade five but obviously we can’t keep our fleet safe and efficient,” he said. “We would be looking in a couple of years to purchase another one so a grant would be helpful.”
