Rising diesel prices since the start of the Iran war are draining already tight American school budgets, making it more expensive to bus students and run generators, a shock officials say they won’t be able to sustain for long.
School districts from Yakima, Washington, to Waco, Texas, are tapping emergency funding reserves to keep buses running. In remote Alaska, officials are scrambling to secure enough fuel to keep the lights on, according to the British Daily Mail. Reuters Interviews.
“It’s more than just a straw on the camel’s back, it’s like a haystack,” Yakima Superintendent Trevor Green said.
This pressure reflects one of the many effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has disrupted the flow of about a fifth of the world’s oil supplies.
Since the war began in late February, fuel prices have recorded one of the fastest rises on record. The rise has turned economies around the world upside down.
It has caused enough pain in the United States to pose a political burden on President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm elections in November when his Republican Party tries to maintain a narrow majority in the US Congress.
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School bus operators in the United States are major buyers of diesel, consuming more than 800 million gallons of diesel annually, according to the American School Bus Council.
Since December, the price U.S. fleets of all types pay for diesel fuel has jumped 67 percent to $5.52 a gallon, an increase that will add about $1.8 billion to the annual cost of operating those school buses, according to a recent analysis by Samsara, a fleet management technology provider.
This presents a major challenge for schools already facing limited budgets, said James Rowan, executive director of the International Association of School Business Administrators.
“Regions can plan for higher costs, but rapid fluctuations in prices make it very difficult to budget accurately,” he said. “Even regions that were able to absorb costs this year through reserves or temporary measures – may not have the same resilience in the future.”
Nearly a third of U.S. school districts are now drawing money from funds or other programs to cover rising fuel costs, while nearly a fifth are tapping reserves or rainy day funds, according to a survey of 188 school administrators commissioned by the Association of School Superintendents (AASA) and conducted during the week of May 4.
School officials are trying to save money by consolidating bus routes, enforcing anti-idling measures, changing fuel purchasing practices, deferring maintenance and cutting administrative spending and staffing, according to the survey, the results of which were shared exclusively with Reuters.
“Suffering from a severe lack of funding.”
Executives with Washington state’s Yakima School District said the price they pay for diesel recently rose 64% year-over-year to $6.30 a gallon. At that price, the district would need to pay an additional $213,000 a year for fuel to run 60 buses, which is roughly the equivalent of two teachers’ salaries, Green said.
This represents a significant burden in an agriculture-dominated school district with an 86% poverty rate, which is already severely underfunded, he said.
In the meantime, the district is gradually making purchases of the 30,000-gallon diesel tank on days when prices are low, rather than filling it up, as it “tumbles through the end of the year,” district Finance Director Jacob Cooper said.
Diesel costs associated with transporting up to 800 students have risen about 30% since the Iran war began, said Christopher Mills, superintendent of Thief River Falls Public Schools in northwestern Minnesota.
The district is working to limit direct impacts to classrooms, “but if prices continue to rise, we may be in a position to reduce support services for students,” Mills said.
Even schools in the oil-rich state of Texas were not spared this disaster. The Waco Independent School District, which has more than 80 buses and averages round-trip routes of about 60 miles per day, saw an 84% year-over-year increase in the price it paid for diesel in early April, the district said.
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In the Yupite School District in southwest Alaska, diesel is used not on buses, but for classroom heating and community generators.
“If they can’t produce electricity, we won’t be able to run the school,” Scott Ballard, superintendent of the Youpiet School District, said in a phone interview from his office in Akiachak.
The district, which serves 550 students, is covered in ice most of the year, giving it only a short window of opportunity for fuel.
So, leaders now face a tough choice, Ballard said: Will they set a price nearly 66% higher than last year or will gambling prices fall? “We are in a very stressful situation.” On the other hand, some of the largest school districts in the United States are partially insulated from fluctuations in fuel prices.
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The New York City area, the nation’s most populous, outsources about 60% of pupil transportation in arrangements that often shift fuel price changes to contractors, said Paul Quinn Morey, president of the New York School Bus Contractors Association.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest, has been moving away from diesel buses for years. A district spokesman said 70% of its fleet of approximately 1,300 buses runs on alternative fuels or batteries.
“High diesel prices continue to impact Los Angeles Unifieds’ transportation budget; however, the district has taken proactive steps to reduce reliance on fossil fuels through significant investments in clean transportation,” a company spokesperson said.
