Dalton Public Schools could bring bus service in house

Published 8:00 pm Friday, September 29, 2023

After decades of contracting bus service out to a private provider, Dalton Public Schools officials are looking at operating a bus service themselves. Officials said the move could potentially save the school system $1 million a year but would require it to borrow several million dollars to buy buses.

“We are looking at purchasing, if (the Board of Education) decides to, some buses,” said Superintendent Tim Scott during a recent school board meeting.

Scott said a survey of employees such as custodians and paraprofessionals found some would also be interested in driving routes. Scott said making sure they would have enough drivers is one factor the school system will have to consider.

He said the school system has identified a property of about five acres on Brooker Road that could be used for a bus barn if the school board decides to bring the bus service in house.

Officials could not say how long the school system has contracted out bus service but they believe it has been at least 20 years. First Student currently has the contract. First Student is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, and provides transportation for school systems across the United States and Canada.

“We’ve been working with financial advisers on a few different concepts,” said Theresa Perry, the school system’s chief financial officer.

She emphasized that the school system has been considering this change well before the union representing drivers called a strike against First Student in May that interfered with bus service for several days.

“We talked to (financial advisers) about a year ago, before the bus strike, about borrowing money, about $7 million, to take on buses because (the operations and transportation departments) have been looking at this as an option in several previous budgets,” Perry said. “Borrowing $7 million gets us about 50 buses.”

Perry said more recently the school system has been looking at borrowing $13 million to buy 80 buses, which would allow the school system to move from a three-tier service to a two-tier service.

“Right now, we do have a three-tier system,” said Scott. “What that means is that our first bus routes are for our 8-12th grade schools, the second routes are for elementary schools, the last routes are for Hammond Creek Middle School.”

“The three-tier system uses buses multiple times, which saves the district money on buses and drivers because they’re not all running simultaneously,” said Scott. “It would be more beneficial from a district perspective to run routes for all elementary schools and then all secondary schools on two tiers. In order to do that, we would need to have almost double the number of buses.”

Perry said the school system is also looking at buying at least some used buses.

“We don’t really want to be in a scenario where we have 50 buses and they last 15 years and then we have to replace 50 buses at once,” she said. “We want to get different ages of buses so we can stagger the replacement.”

She said buying used buses could also save the school system money up front.

“We think if we buy used buses instead of spending $140,000 on a new bus we are instead spending $25,000 to $35,000 on a bus,” she said.

Perry said the school system can’t borrow the money on its own and would need the city to assist.

“There would be a revenue bond and an intergovernmental agreement between us,” she said. “We would be the ones paying back the debt, but they would have to have their name on it.”

Mayor David Pennington said if the school system moves in that direction he believes the City Council members would support helping it borrow money.