School buses & gas
What does the future hold?

A student makes her way to a waiting school bus. Rising gas prices have made it difficult for area schools to cope with budget shortfalls. [photo by Brian Leddy / Independent]

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — The county school district is looking at spending — for the first time ever — more than $1 million next year for diesel fuel for its buses if the $4 a gallon gas price tag sticks around.

That’s more than 150 percent higher than the district was spending just four years ago, said Ben Chavez, the director of transportation for the Gallup-McKinley County School District.

The good news is that the lion’s share of the cost to fuel the district’s buses is coming from the state government, but school officials are worried that the state may balk at continuing to pay the higher and higher costs. If that happens, the district may have to start looking at ways to cut down on its fuel costs.

Some school districts in California are beginning to charge parents to transport their children to and from school, but Chavez said that this isn’t being considered here. There has been some discussion of cutting back on student activities — such as visits to the Albuquerque zoo — but school Superintendent Ray Arsenault said that will not be happening here either.

He said, the district may be forced to start looking at going to a four-day week if the state decides not to provide extra funds to pay for the higher gasoline prices, he said.

Currently, Chavez said, the district is paying about $3.74 a gallon for diesel fuel, which is 20 cents less than it cost at the pump when the district purchased it. The district buys its gasoline in bulk and stores it in the 20,000 gallon storage tank it has in Gallup and the 10,000 gallon storage tank it has in the outlying county schools.

This past year, the district spent $817,000 for diesel fuel for the buses and $28,000 for regular unleaded for the district cars.

What the state does, he said, is reimburse the district at the level of funding for the previous year, which was $560,000. Just recently, the governor’s office approved supplemental funding, which provide the district with another $159.407.

That still put the district almost $100,000 short which required the district to shift monies around from other counts, he said.

“These higher gasoline prices are definitely having an impact here,” Chavez said.

One reason that student activities has not been cut back is that these are paid by various federal grants so the district hasn’t been out any funds for the extra gasoline costs.

That’s also true of the after-school programs which require extra bus runs — these are also paid for by federal and state grants.

Arsenault said his office is watching the gasoline expenditure carefully and like most people in New Mexico, school officials are also wondering just what the future holds.