Schools feel the pinch as cost of diesel rises

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BY MARGARET REIST / Lincoln Journal Star

It’s no fun watching the news when you’re in charge of 111 big yellow school buses.

Not when diesel prices are hitting record highs and your budget is already broken.

“Here’s the kicker,” said Bill McCoy, Lincoln Public Schools director of custodial and transportation services. “We were able to increase the budget for diesel fuel $147,000 this year.”

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But, here’s what they didn’t expect, even with that increase: “We’re paying a dollar more (a gallon) than we were at the same time last year.

“It’s just unbelievable,” he said.

As of the end of March, the district had spent $422,260 on diesel fuel. Its budget was $393,950.

Officials predict they’ll spend another  $170,740 through the end of the fiscal year.

Rural area schools are also feeling the pinch.

Malcolm Public Schools isn’t over budget and officials think the $30,000 they have budgeted will get them to the end of the year. The Waverly and Norris school districts are in a similar position.

But Malcolm Superintendent Gene Neddenriep said rising fuel prices have already had an effect.

 A couple of years ago, the district curtailed extra field trips, limiting classes to one in the spring and one in the fall.

And high fuel prices affect more than just bus routes, he said.

They raise the cost of supplies, such as new textbooks and food, that are brought in by semis. 

Neddenriep said he doesn’t know yet how the rising prices will affect next year’s budget, but he knows it will.

“When it takes that big a jump, it’s going to be an issue,” he said.

Raymond Central Superintendent Gary Oxley said fuel prices have put his district’s transportation budget over the top in the past month.

That means holding off on some things, like furniture upgrades or some repairs.

Oxley, who’s been a school administrator since the gas crunch of the 1970s, said he’s never seen anything like this.

“This, in terms of prices and percentage of prices increases, certainly matches anything we’ve seen in the past,” he said.

What makes it worse, he said, is that levy lids limit how districts can deal with such fluctuations.

“This is very concerning to all school districts,” he said. “It seems like whenever we have a meeting (of administrators) this is certainly a topic that gets talked about.”

 At LPS, officials are counting on close to $180,000 in savings by eliminating a number of bus routes through boundary changes.

“Even that is not enough if we stay on our current path,” McCoy said.

LPS bids its fuel, which means it gets a better price than that at the pump.

 Nationally, retail diesel prices rose 2.1 cents to $4.066 Friday, topping the previous high set a day earlier.

The last diesel purchase LPS made was at $3.51 a gallon, McCoy said.

LPS has gone over its transportation budget for the past five years, by increasingly large amounts.

Among the cost saving measures they’ve taken is a non-idling policy for drivers.

That began mostly as an effort to be more environmentally conscious, but it also saved money. A study comparing bus usage in 2003-04 to 2004-05 showed the number of miles LPS buses drove increased, but the number of gallons used decreased.

Dennis Van Horn, LPS associate superintendent of business affairs, said although diesel prices are a concern, he worries more about utility costs, which take up a bigger chunk of the district’s budget.

As for McCoy, if prices keep going up, the transportation budget will have to increase also, because nearly all the current bus routes are required by law.

And he’s done about as much streamlining as possible.

“Our ability to absorb it is becoming very, very difficult,” he said.

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.