Building the Empire....
031706 Wanted: garage space for fleet
BY ABBY LUBY
The transportation department of the Bedford Central School District last week asked for an additional $663,139, or a total increase of 9.56 percent over this year's operating budget, which was $6,932,346. The estimated budget for next year is $7,595,485.
Folded in with the presentation by district director of transportation Thomas Turner and Mark Betz, assistant superintendent for business and administrative services, was a request for a study that would deter-mine the cost efficiency of owning or renting a garage for school buses. Currently, the district shares school bus space with the Byram Hills School District. Driving the need to find an alternative space is the June 2007 end date of the district's contract with the bus companies.
"We are talking about a facility that the owner would want to rent or lease in a long-term fashion," said Mr. Betz. "That facility will be used as a maintenance garage to repair and service vehicles, and we could cohabitate with the contractors. It gives us the opportunity to tell the contractors that there's a location they would have to go to fuel up the buses."
Mr. Betz said that the district was exploring putting a 2,000-gallon diesel fuel tank on the Fox Lane campus near their already existing gas tank.
Mr. Turner said that moving from one garage for maintenance to another place to park and yet a different place to get fuel creates instability and inconsistency. "When you put out to bid, you try to attract substantial contractors, who may be from Connecticut, Long Island, or upstate," he said. "They can't bid on the contract because there is no central place to fix the buses and to fuel the buses, so they stay away form us."
The existing contractor is renting a facility in Yorktown that he shares, said Mr. Turner.
"We would save many hundreds of thousands of dollars by not going to Byram Hills," said Mr. Turner. "We are at a crossroads, and we are looking for a nod to proceed with a preliminary feasibility study" The board agreed to have the transportation department research alternative garage spaces in the area.
Total transportation contract costs this year were approximately $4,680,000. In the proposed budget it is $5,167,162. The district is also requesting four new school bus vans for a total of $187,000.
Board member Mark Chernis asked about the difference between school-owned buses and contracted buses.
"We are not in the business of maintaining buses," said Mr. Chernis. "I'd like to get a better sense of the cost for each service."
Figured into the budget are the rising fuel costs. "We have spent about $170,000 just for fuel for our own buses," said Mr. Betz.
Added to that for next year is an estimated $107,796 for fuel. The 2005-06 budget for contractor-purchased fuel totaled $233,000. The proposed budget for next year is $237,959.
The overall transportation budget is divided into two sections: district transportation, which for this year was $2,034,530 and will climb to $2,190,364 with a variance of $155,835. The other part of the transportation department's budget is for contractors. The proposed 2006-07 budget for contractors is $4,897,816, up $507,305 to a total of $5,405,121
The district is also asking for an additional bus monitor at a 3.5 per-cent hourly rate increase.
There are no expected staff changes, and the estimated salary increase for the proposed budget for the transportation department is $12,910. The staff includes 29 bus drivers and two bus monitors, a transportation supervisor, one clerical worker, and one dispatcher, among others.