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cate and demonstrate the value of transportation to the district if they are going to have any chance at all to advocate for the same or more funding.”
Creativity is the Word Ammon is among those who advise transportation directors to get
creative in their searches for solutions and not rely on state legislatures to fix their problems. “Knowing your state funding is important. It is critical. But also recog- nizing that there’s other funding sources like Medicaid, title programs and grants, these are things folks have become familiar with now be- cause there are more sources of that across the industry,” he explained. “It is also important that when thinking about the optimization of their transportation system, one of the things they need to be thinking about is how does it optimize relative to all of these different funding sources.” Ammon said the Medicaid funding is done on a reimbursement basis and can be used for operations. “You could also look at grant funding for purchase of assets, the myriad funds around clean diesel and electric buses, that’s certainly an opportunity,” he added. “But there are also other grants available such as Clean Cities and there are Safe Routes to School Grants. Then there are the title programs where available funds often go uncollected. Transportation should go after that funding.” An alternative funding source is what transportation officials in the
Agua Fria Union High School District in Avondale, Arizona pursued after a bond issue that included six new buses failed last November. Agua Fria Transportation Director Peggie Overton led the district’s search efforts. “When the bond failed, we had to look at some alternative ways of
purchasing buses to make sure we had enough buses this year,” Overton explained. “Transportation was a very small piece of that bond.” She said that through the Arizona Bus Center, a dealer that features
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Thomas Built Buses, the district learned that Daimler Truck North Amer- ica instituted a financing mechanism to help school districts purchase school buses. “That was the route that we took,” Overton said. “After a lot of meetings and research to determine that it would be advantageous to the school district and compliant with state regulations, the board ulti- mately approved it.” Overton noted that a bonus of the transaction was that the dealer
already had five of the 84-passenger buses on hand. “So, we were not in a situation where we had to order buses and wait a year for delivery,” she said. “They were already spec’d out well and the price point was amazing. The price for school buses has increased significantly, so if you can get a new 84-passenger bus for under $200,000 that’s pretty unheard of today. We were able to make that happen.” Meanwhile, David Baber, state director of transportation for the West
Virginia Department of Education, said his department is stressing the same point. “We’re telling school districts the same thing, that they have to be creative, and we do everything we can to help them achieve that goal,” he said. “They’re trying to be creative and are trying to do different things. I don’t know that any have canceled runs, but most of them are doubling up runs. Some are using alternative means of transportation such as public transportation. We do have one county that helps their homeless students with public transportation in areas where they can’t offer a typical bus service.” Baber pointed out that the state’s funding formula of 87.5 percent to 95
percent sounds good, but transportation directors are still struggling to provide for their students and pay the bills.
18 School Transportation News • APRIL 2023
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