Tenenbaum signs order for state’s first major school bus purchase in 10 years
State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum today signed an order for 630 new school buses – South Carolina’s first major bus purchase since 1995.
The purchase, made possible by a $36 million appropriation from the General Assembly, will allow the State Department of Education to replace nearly all of its 22- and 23-year-old buses from the 1984 and 1985 model years. The new buses will be manufactured this fall and delivered in November, Tenenbaum said.
“South Carolina’s bus fleet is so old, and bus breakdowns have become so widespread, that our maintenance program is under siege,” Tenenbaum said. “Every day is a struggle for our hard-working mechanics, and despite their best efforts, too many kids are late getting to school and late getting home. We need these new buses, and we need them as quickly as possible.”
Today’s signing took place at the Education Department in front of two buses: a 22-year-old vehicle that will be retired and a new model manufactured by Thomas Built Buses, the High Point, N.C. company is currently under contract to build school buses for South Carolina.
John O'Leary, President and CEO of Thomas Built Buses, said his employees are ready to get started on South Carolina's order and will have new buses ready for delivery this fall.
"We certainly understand the immediate need to update South Carolina's aging school bus fleet," O'Leary said. "With the help of our chassis supplier and sister company in Gaffney, S.C., we are prepared to begin delivering buses in the fourth quarter of 2006 and complete the delivery in the first quarter of 2007."
The chassis for each new bus will be built at Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation's facility in Gaffney. Chassis will then be shipped to Thomas' High Point plant for body installation and completion. Thomas and Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp. are members of the Freightliner Group, a DaimlerChrysler company.
Of the 630 buses ordered, 520 will be 65-passenger regular route buses ($54,385) and 110 will be special 35-passenger buses fitted with seatbelts and wheelchair lifts ($73,475).
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, South Carolina currently has the nation’s worst-polluting school bus fleet and the largest percentage of buses 10 years old or older (87 percent). The nonprofit advocacy group tracks the age of buses because older vehicles produce far more air pollution than newer ones with more sophisticated emission controls. At the other end of the scale is Delaware, with only 4 percent of its buses 10 years old or older.
For the past 10 years, South Carolina has purchased an average of about 90 new buses per year, roughly equivalent to a 62-year replacement cycle. During that time, the average age of a South Carolina school bus has climbed from 7.5 years in 1996 to nearly 14 years today. The 640 new buses will improve that average age to 12.5.
Three members of the South Carolina House of Representatives – Ronnie Townsend, Ken Clark and John Scott – sponsored a bill in the just-ended session of the General Assembly that would have committed South Carolina to a 12-year replacement cycle for school buses. The House approved the bill, but the Senate did not pass it.
Both a Legislative Audit Council report and an independent consultant have called for South Carolina to budget for annual bus purchases. The Education Department favors a system that would retire school buses after they are 12 years old or have more than 250,000 miles on their odometers.
Such a plan would require the purchase of 470 new buses each year (about $30 million). South Carolina’s last school bus purchase of that magnitude was a 2,000-vehicle purchase in 1995 that remains the largest single order of school buses in American history. Those 2,000 vehicles, which make up a large percentage of South Carolina’s 5,600-bus fleet, are now 10 years old and beginning to break down and incur higher maintenance costs.
“From a business perspective, it’s simply not as cost-effective to buy buses in fits and starts,” Tenenbaum said. “There is no doubt that an annual replacement cycle is our most cost-effective option, and I firmly believe that the General Assembly should commit itself to that.”
Due to rising costs for repairs and diesel fuel, the Education Department has been forced to divert recent appropriations for new bus purchases into maintenance of the existing fleet. For the $54,000 cost of a new bus, the agency says it can perform major repairs on 12 older vehicles and get them back on the road. Costs of major component repairs to aging buses – mostly rebuilding of blown engines, transmissions and differentials – have risen by 500 percent over the past five years.
This year, however, the General Assembly appropriated $16 million in new funds for repairs and fuel, which allowed the entire $36 million targeted for new bus purchases to be used for its intended purpose.
“The General Assembly seemed to have a real sense of urgency in working with us this year,” Tenenbaum said. In addition to Representatives Townsend, Clark and Scott, she also expressed appreciation for the work of Representatives Bill Cotty and Roland Smith, as well as Senators John Courson, Wes Hayes and John Matthews.
Despite the upcoming infusion of new buses, the State Superintendent said a combination of factors – more bus breakdowns, higher diesel fuel costs and low salaries for bus mechanics and drivers – would continue to cause problems statewide.
“Our buses are still safe to operate,” Tenenbaum said. “But until we commit to an annual replacement cycle, we will see increasing numbers of breakdowns and delays in transporting students.”
Tenenbaum said pollution from older buses – a problem underlined by the recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists – is yet another reason to replace them with newer vehicles with improved emission controls.
The scientists’ national school bus report card gave South Carolina’s buses a "D" grade for soot pollution and a rating of "poor" in smog-forming pollution. Out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, South Carolina ranked last in the two major pollution categories analyzed in the report.
Each of the state's school buses produced an average of 24.5 pounds of soot and 531 pounds of smog-forming pollution in 2005, according to the report. In other words, a South Carolina school bus releases nearly three times more soot into the air than a Delaware school bus, the state with the newest and cleanest fleet.
By next fall, said Education Department Transportation Director Don Tudor, all South Carolina buses will use a blend of 20 percent biodiesel ultralow-sulfur fuel, which reduces soot emissions about 10 percent from standard diesel fuel. The state is also using $1 million to purchase 140 particulate traps. These filters will help capture emissions coming out of the bus engines, said Brian Barnes, an environmental health manager with the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control.
More than half of South Carolina’s 670,000 public school students ride a bus to or from school each day.