Though the complete conversion of the state’s public school bus fleet to fully electric isn’t due for more than a decade, some local school districts have already begun talking about how they’re going to make it happen.
The New Paltz Central School District’s Board of Education last month received a preliminary assessment on how compliance with the state’s mandate that all school buses be electric by 2035 might work for the district.
Consultant Greg Royer, sustainability practice manager with CPL, an architecture, engineering and planning firm, covered how the district might prepare for the electric bus deadline, including assessing its current fleet of 78 buses, how best to build a functional site for parking and charging buses, and both how to budget and make the most of federal, state and utility incentives to help cover the costs.
“We’ve been doing a lot of these assessments over the past several months, and when we’re comparing the diesel use and the maintenance costs that go with it, we’re finding that there’s some pretty significant savings in going to EV (electric vehicles),” said Royer during a School Board meeting held on Wednesday, February 15. “There is a significant increase in power use, but we do have some strategies which we’re going to incorporate into the overall assessment to help keep those costs down in comparison to running a diesel fleet.”
New York State’s 2022-23 budget established a commitment for all new school buses purchased to be zero emission by 2027, with all school buses in operation to be electric by 2035. Each day, the state transports 2.3 million students, roughly ten percent of the nation’s pupils in grades K-12, to school on around 42,000 buses.
The state touted the health and ecological impact of switching from fossil fueled to electric buses, citing a study by the American Lung Association in New York that showed the switch resulting in an estimated 159,000 fewer asthma attacks while generating $68.2 billion in public health benefits. The move to electric school buses will also help achieve the state’s climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent by 2050.
“Every morning, especially in the wintertime…typically it takes about 30 minutes to heat these (diesel) buses up,” Royer said. “All that diesel, that’s polluting the air. There’s obvious benefits to getting rid of those greenhouse emissions.”
The cost to districts like New Paltz of converting their school bus fleet to electric are as yet unknown, but the expectation is that they will be offset over time, partly due to the traditionally volatile prices in diesel and other natural gases.
“With electricity it’s a lot easier to control,” Royer said. “We can add with what’s called a CMS or charge management system, and that will control how the electricity is distributed across the fleet to maximize the cost savings when you know they’re charging overnight or during periods in the day.”
Royer added that there is also the option of the district selling surplus energy to the utility by injecting it back into the grid.
The state’s 2022-23 budget includes $500 million to help districts begin their transition to all-electric buses through the Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022. But Royer said many districts are grappling with whether to take advantage of available funding now or wait a few years to see if the bus battery storage technology is greatly improved.
“There are all these different variables,” Royer said. “Our suggestion is since you’re moving ahead with the assessment, let’s explore all the available funding now and see what might make sense to capture. Because as time goes on this, you know, special funding is going to evaporate. Time is of the essence to be able to capture as much free money as possible to at least get the basic infrastructure in place so that you’re not paying full cost later on down the road.”
Royer added that a federal Solar Investment Tax Credit program initially set up for homeowners and private companies has been expanded to include public entities, like school districts. The legislation would allow districts like New Paltz to claim a 30 percent tax credit of the total installation cost, not as a reimbursement, but up front. Having a solar component would allow the NPCSD to be less reliant on the public electricity grid’s functionality to operate its bus fleet.
“We were talking earlier about whether the grid could handle this,” Royer said. “Tying these systems in with battery backups could be a way where you don’t have to worry about the grid. It’s a redundancy option, because if you lose power with 78 buses, how do you get the kids back and forth? How do we keep the fleet up and running?”
Royer said that because the NPCSD already operates its own transportation rather than leasing through an independent company, it already has a head start on other districts. Though the final CPL assessment isn’t’t due for some time, Royer said that the best option for New Paltz might be to fold in a capital project to build a garage on district property that would accommodate electric bus charging, allowing much of the costs to be recouped through state building aid along with other electric bus conversion incentives.
“The idea is that we capture as much of that as possible in conjunction with state aid and hopefully the leftover work is minimal,” Royer said.
Other districts have yet to begin making concrete plans, but New Paltz may have gotten a head start because they entirely operate their own fleet. Both the Saugerties Central School District (SCSD) and Onteora Central School District use both their own buses and contract with outside companies for service, while the Kingston City School District (KCSD) solely contracts with others.
The KCSD has around 120 buses on the road each morning and afternoon transporting around 5,500 students each day. They contract with Ethan Allen Transportation, First Student, Birnie Bus Service and Lezette Express. Kingston Superintendent Paul Padalino said the subject has yet to come up, so the district is still unclear about what their responsibilities will be. But he said he does expect the transition to be a bumpy road.
“I just laugh and think, well, there’s not going to be field trips to New York City, because an electric bus can’t get there,” Padalino said. “We can hardly get to Albany, probably.”
Like other school districts, the KCSD is responsible for navigating its various bus routes, a complex system designed to ensure students get to and from school on time. Those efforts took a hit earlier this year as some of the bus companies the district contracts with suffered staffing shortages, with some of its routes being temporarily canceled.
The Saugerties Central School District had similar issues early in the year; they operate one of their own buses but otherwise contract with First Student, Lezette Express, Coxsackie Transport, and Tonche Transit, serving around 1,872 students each day.
SCSD Superintendent Kirk Reinhardt said his district has been in contact with contractors, but solutions are still way off in the distance.
Asked what concerns the SCSD has with the state mandate, Reinhardt provided a lengthy list he said was “in no particular order.”
“Cost of contracts, bus availability and price, electric supply and price, infrastructure, including charging stations and bus garages and available space,” Reinhardt said. “As well as cost to maintain, supply of mechanics with EV expertise, length of bus trips, increase in fleet size, can the State afford the increase in Transportation Aid and Building Aid to districts for all of these expenses? Will banks loan contractors money to purchase these types of buses? Resale value, maintenance costs (battery replacement and) contractors at most get a five-year contract.”
The Onteora Central School District (OSCD)operates its own small fleet as well as contracting with First Student, serving around 1,179 students each day.
“This includes students that we transport to private and parochial schools,” said OCSD Superintendent Victoria McLaren. “We operate on average four athletic buses per day and between 4-5 field trips per month.”
McLaren said the OCSD is in the early stages of planning with First Student about how to best use their share of the state funding, but added that it was too soon to have information to share.
“We are grateful to be able to begin the transition utilizing grant funding in order to lessen the burden on our local taxpayers as this would otherwise need to be funded through school taxes and it is a mandated initiative,” she said.
Most school districts in Hudson Valley have to cover a lot of ground in transporting their students, perhaps none more so than Onteora. McLaren said that is among her district’s concerns.
“Given the large area that our vehicles travel we have concerns about the longevity of a charge for the battery of each vehicle and the amount of time that would be required to re-charge between the morning and afternoon runs,” she said. “This becomes especially concerning during the winter when we have early dismissals.”
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