The costs of forming a fleet

WAUPACA – The Waupaca School District has recently been looking into the numbers and figures for going back to having their own transportation service for bussing.
Mark Flaten, the Waupaca School District Administrator, said the initial conversations about the district taking over the transportation are very early in discussions, as the district continues to gather estimates on the possible bussing switch.
“I think we would have to have a lot more conversations if this is the direction we’re serious about going,” Flaten said at a recent school board meeting. “I don’t know at this point and time that would be a worthy direction we should head.”
Austin Moore, the director of business in the district, went over the estimates they had gathered so far at the Sept. 23 school board meeting.
There are 21 morning and afternoon routes, as well as a few extra busses that would be needed for various sports, for a total of about 25 busses.

The cost of a bus is currently about $150,000 per bus, which would make a total of $3.75 million for a fleet that would be able to cover the district.
They would also need to purchase land and build a bus garage, being they had sold their previous site. Moore estimated about $1 million dollars for a garage and property.
There is also the staff, including drivers, dispatch, mechanic and coordinator, totaling over $800,000 for salaries and benefits, with current estimates being on the lower side.
The numbers for fuel and insurance have not come back yet at the time of the board meeting, Moore said.
The current yearly budget for transportation is $1.75 million.
Drawbacks were also discussed at the school board meeting, starting with if a bus goes down there would not be additional busses to pull from alternate fleets.
If the district had their own bus service they would have a finite amount of busses to use as back up, whereas Go Riteway would have the ability to pull a bus from another area.
The average lifespan of a bus is up for debate, Moore said, with most districts making their busses last as long as they can before they are pulled out of rotation.
With having all the busses purchased at once this would mean multiple busses may need renewal at the same time.
“We are a more rural district so we do put more miles on our busses and so it’s a challenge,” Moore said.
The issues with the current bussing service lies not with the busses but with bus drivers and the ability to retain drivers.
“The challenges we have had have not been the physical busses, [Go Riteway] can get us as many busses as we need, the challenge is getting … high quality drivers,” Moore said. “We have a great group here, many of them have driven for Waupaca for years and years.”
The driver pool is the largest obstacle the district has to traverse; finding busses for extracurricular activities as well as afternoon routes has created timing concerns for students and parents.
Flaten said he has been in discussions with Go Riteway to address concerns about the contract, saying they have been receptive and are working to resolve matters.
He also said that he wants to make bus information for students readily available to parents, where parents can go online and find their child’s bus information.
Flaten suggested continuing to work with Go Riteway to address concerns and find solutions to service issues they are running into.
With one solution being working with other local bussing companies that would be able to step in when Go Riteway is not able to keep up with bussing demands.
The district plans to continue looking for solutions to transportation issues, working to ensure students have consistent, reliable transportation for school and sports.