By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Students in the Galion School District will be enjoying that new bus smell for a while. Five new school buses sat in the back of the Galion School parking lot Wednesday, on display for the community.
The buses arrived from Cardinal Bus Company on Wednesday. The company submitted the lowest bids.
“When it was time to get the buses inspected by the state, we had four buses that didn’t pass inspection,” Galion City School Treasurer Terri Day explained. “Once we knew who was going to be able to fill our bid, they loaned us buses to get us going through the beginning of the school year so we didn’t have to cut our transportation and they didn’t charge us for those months since we were purchasing from them.”
“We are very excited about them,” Day said. “We are going to have nice safe buses for our kids. It’s unfortunate that we had to buy all these buses all at one time; it’s not normally how we would do things.”
There were extenuating circumstances, however. The scheduled replacement of the school buses was eliminated a few years ago due to a lack of funding and budget cuts.
“It just compounded,” Day said. “We have a wonderful mechanic, he does a great job of keeping them running but there’s only so much you can do when you’re combatting against the salt and the rust and the falling apart of the bodies.”
Only one of the buses needed to be replaced due to a mechanical issue. In the cases of the other buses, a back door was falling off and a person could see down to the road through the floor. Those buses were 1900 model buses from 2000 or later.
“That’s not safe for our kids. We want to make sure our kids are in safe hands as well as safe machines since they’re going down the road,” said Day.
Day said the district is now on a plan so they can roll over buses one to two a year.
“Our goal is never to have a bus more than 13 years if we don’t have to,” said Day.
The Ohio High School Board Association determined that the school district will safe significantly more with new buses when it came to fuel and repairs than what the interest for the buses would cost the district. Day said they will be saving money in the process rather than spending more.
The new buses were purchased on a Municipal Lease program. It is a four-year payment plan where, after the four-year term, the five new buses will belong to the district. The district secured an interest rate of 2.29 percent on the purchase plan.