We discuss how non-domiciled CDL restrictions exacerbate the school bus driver shortage, new research on school zone and bus stop safety, reframing the student transportation conversation, and conference updates.
Consultant Launi Harden, who served as the former transportation director at Washington County School District in Utah and is the new executive director of the Florida Association of Pupil Transportation, analyzes transportation challenges driven by declining enrollment, funding and staff, the importance of bus attendants and alternative transportation, and essential hands-on emergency training she will help lead at the TSD Conference in November.
The new school year has begun in the Empire State, and local school districts and bus companies have an additional five years to transition to all-electric fleets. But transportation leaders and policymakers say the clock is still ticking on major funding and infrastructure challenges that could make or break the ambitious mandate.
As part of the 2027 fiscal year budget passed in May, lawmakers extended the deadline for full compliance with New York’s electric school bus mandate from 2035 to 2040 and the requirement for all new school bus purchases to be zero-emission from 2027 to 2032. The move is widely viewed as a necessary reset for the nation’s largest school transportation system, but sources caution that time alone won’t solve the structural barriers districts face in electrifying their fleets.
“It’s great that both parts of the legislation were moved down five years, but the looming questions weren’t answered, and the school districts still have so many questions that the contractors really can’t answer,” said Corey Muirhead, executive vice president for New York City contractor Logan Bus. “They still don’t understand how the state funding is going to work and how they’re going to get reimbursed.”
A First Step, Not a Finish Line
For years, the state’s three primary school transportation associations—the New York Association for Pupil Transportation (NYAPT), New York School Bus Contractors Association (NYSBCA) and New York State Bus Distributors Association (NYSBDA)—have warned that the mandate, as originally written, was moving faster than the market, utilities and school budgets could reasonably support.
“Over the past five years, New York’s school transportation industry…has collaborated closely with Gov. [Kathy] Hochul’s administration and state lawmakers,” said lobbyist Andre Claridge, who represents NYAPT and the NYSBDA and formerly worked with the NYSBCA. “We have kept state leaders updated on our progress toward meeting the electric school bus mandate while highlighting the significant challenges faced by local school districts and industry partners.”
Claridge called the five-year extension “a welcome first step,” but stressed that the law’s language “leaves no room for innovation and requires revision.” He and other industry leaders are pushing for not only extended timelines, but increased state investment and regulatory flexibility that would allow other zero- and near-zero-emission technologies to count toward compliance.
“We opposed the mandate from the beginning and advocated for no mandate or a more realistic timeline. Finally, they heard us,” commented David Christopher, executive director of NYAPT. “We are now looking at how we will lobby going forward, because five years will go by quickly, and we need to provide realistic transition plans for the legislature to consider. Hopefully they will listen.”
Tim Flood, executive vice president for New York school bus contractor The Trans Group, said the compliance delay offers a little relief but noted the challenges “are still very real and numerous.”
“I think there will be changes to the mandate. I certainly hope there will be,” he continued, citing a belief that ongoing negotiations will add more delays between now and 2032. “But at this point and time, we have to move forward as it is exactly how it is.”
The new deadline could also be impacted by upcoming political election cycles, he added.
Meanwhile, the extension could provide breathing room to build out a more data-driven, district-by-district, company-by-company approach.
An electric Type A school bus operated by Trans Group company Educational Bus Transportation, Inc. on Long Island, New York.
Where Electric Buses Prove Viable Is a Diverse Playing Field
“There is no category of district based on what we’ve seen where an electric school bus is inherently not viable,” said Alok Disa, senior advisor for the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) clean transportation team.
NYSERDA is tasked by the state legislature with awarding funds to districts for purchasing electric school buses and related infrastructure as well as developing electrification plans for fleets. Disa pointed to real-world operations in rural, suburban and urban communities based on the organization’s experience work with school districts across the state.
About 50,000 school buses of all fuel types operate across New York. The split between large school buses and Type A “vans” is about 60-40.
Disa explained that more than 350 electric school buses are currently registered in New York state, up from roughly 250 to 275 the previous year, and 54 school districts currently have at least one electric school bus deployed. The World Resource Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative says the number is more like 561 ESBs deployed in New York, with over 1,200 in the pipeline or “committed” to a school district or bus company through state or federal funding.
Despite the figures, most electric school buses operate outside New York City, countering the perception that electrification is only advancing in dense urban markets, Disa noted.
Early data from NYSERDA’s work with school districts on the fleet electrification planning program suggests that approximately 80 percent of routes statewide fall within the range today’s electric school buses can handle, once reasonable safety margins and cold-weather performance are factored in. In general, Disa said NYSERDA estimates that roughly 70 to 80 miles per day is the typical working range for many morning and afternoon home-to-school routes, even in cold regions such as the Adirondacks, Western New York and the Finger Lakes.
“We recommend that districts begin their electric school bus transition with some of their a.m./p.m. routes…rather than starting with extracurricular or longer trips,” he said, adding that districts operating buses in severe winter conditions have largely been able to keep those vehicles in service with appropriate planning and protocols.
Challenging Case in Point
In addition to being the transportation director for Naples Central School District, located about an hour drive southeast of Rochester, Pat Elwell also owns personal electric vehicles. That led him to push the district to apply for the first round of EPA Clean School Bus Program funding in 2022, around the same time the state legislature passed the electric mandate.
Elwell is also a bus mechanic, so his attention was finely tuned to how the ESBs would operate once the first two were delivered in March 2024. The district also has an electric Chevrolet Equinox used for students served by the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
“Our first issue came right out of the gate when our Level 2 chargers were taking 17-plus hours to charge our buses,” he shared with STN. “Working with the charger company, and getting a crash course in charger programing, we were able to fix this problem to where they [now] charge up within six to eight hours.”
Otherwise, he said maintenance has been “negligible,” though brake inspection intervals had to be cut in half to six months or 6,000 miles.
“I received a frantic radio transmission one morning from the driver that she smelled a burning smell on the bus. When the bus made it to the transportation facility, I quickly found that the smell was from the right front brake,” recounted Elwell, who is also the president of NYAPT’s Wayne-Finger Lakes chapter. “Turns out that with one pedal drive the drivers do not use the brakes much, therefore the pads had seized in the caliper bracket.”
While he said the ESBs only need one daily charge to operate all in-district and the one out-of-district route in 40- and 50-degree spring temperatures, an obvious challenge has been heating the ESBs in winter. Elwell said he learned the 10kWh heat pumps originally installed were too small for the cabin heating system. Even then, issues have remained.
“Working with the engineers at IC Bus they came to the conclusion that a 20-kWh pump should fix this problem,” he explained. “We did swap them out, and the difference in heat and battery consumption was significantly better. Fast forward to winter 2026, with sustained temps in the single digits and below zero, and the buses could not produce heat to be able to operate the buses safely and comfortably. Therefore, we moved the runs to diesel buses.”
He added that a repeated test of winter-time range in January and February 2025 documented the need for mid-day charging to complete back-to-back runs within the district service area, “which still holds true to this day,” he said.
The longest Naples routes are 80 miles round trip per day, Elwell continued, with the average morning and afternoon routes being 29 miles. In addition to the two EVs, the fleet currently consists of 13 diesel Type C school buses, six gasoline Type A vans, three SUVs, and a sedan.
“We currently use diesel/gasoline buses for out-of-district routes and field/athletic trips as the ESBs do not have the range,” he added.
So far, he said he has calculated a cost of around $0.57 per mile/kWh for his ESBs and $0.65 per mile for diesel. He added that he has been working with NYSERDA to develop a better formula.
Meanwhile, there’s the issue of support. It was only a couple of years ago Lion Electric filed for bankruptcy protection and was then acquired by Montreal investors, with the caveat that the electric school bus line would only be sold and serviced in Quebec. Other players in the segment have also fallen by the wayside, which creates concern for long-term customer support and warranty coverage.
“Some of those chassis, those companies aren’t even in business anymore, and I think that’s going to be one of the challenges,” commented Trans Group’s Flood. “Maybe not as much in the vehicles but in charging stations, in charging software. There are a lot of options, but how many are going to be there three, four or five years from now?”
“We don’t find a problem with electric buses because we are lucky enough to be in a location with sufficient power and have routes that are relatively short … [W]e’ve never had a bus where the batteries have been drained fully,” commented CEO Matt Berlin. “We are not worried about someone being stranded in the middle of rural New York. In the worst case, they’re in the middle of Queens.”
Berlin added that if NYCSBUS was running 100 ESBs, it might be a different story.
New York City formed the non-profit NYCSBUS in 2021 after acquiring the assets of school bus contractor Reliant Transportation. NYCSBUS operates a fleet of over 900 school buses with 888 routes. Twenty-nine of the school buses are electric. All so far are Type A’s consisting of 22 Micro Birds, six Type A Collins Bus (five with Lightning eMotors electric drives and one with a Motiv), and a RIDE Achiever.
As of the new school year, Berlin said the average daily route any school bus travels a day is 65 miles, which is normally within range of an ESB. A quarter of the 888 daily routes are 30 miles or shorter.
“We are not putting our EVs on every single route. We’re lucky that the city is compact,” he explained, adding that ESBs aren’t currently used on longer routes from Queens to New Jersey. “We’re lucky that regenerative braking benefits urban driving more than rural.”
He said the 29 Type A ESBs cost $0.13 per mile to operate, compared to $0.45 per mile for gasoline ($4.10 per gallon and 9 mpg) and $1 per mile for diesel ($6 per gallon and 6 mpg).
Like elsewhere in the state, Berlin said winter temperatures impact the range. He added that a proprietary route planning tool calculates which routes are best served by an ESB or an internal-combustion bus. The set goal is to return the former to the depot with a 20-percent charge remaining each day.
He also is looking at the viability of adding repowered school buses with electric batteries.
“We think the promise of repowering is terrific, if it worked right, and we haven’t seen it work. But if it did, it would cut the [purchase] price by a third,” he added. “Not to mention create jobs in New York City and train another generation of mechanics in how to work with these vehicles.”
Billions Still Needed for Buses and Charging
While route viability is trending positive, at least in some areas, dollars remain a major sticking point.
“It’s a massive capital outlay to reach this goal for many folks,” observed Flood at Trans Group. “For us as contractors, for school districts, whether they’re operating their own [fleet] or contracting or a combination of both, allocating or acquiring the capital to do those things … it’s just a challenge.”
Logan Bus’s Muirhead noted that new purchase costs of ESBs, could range from 30-percent to as high as 70-percent more than an internal combustion engine bus, putting school districts between a rock and a hard place.
“A school transportation’s budget was $2 million, and now it goes to $5 million?” he asked. “The way that I understand state reimbursement is that the district has to fund that $5 million, and then at the end of the year they get reimbursed by the state. This [is] the biggest elephant in the room that’s not addressed.”
Lobbyist Claridge said the industry has consistently told state leaders that fully funding the transition, “covering the billions required for new buses, charging infrastructure and power grid capacity,” he shared, is essential if New York is to convert what is “arguably the largest land-based mass transit system in the nation.”
Without that, he warned, the mandate risks outpacing realistic district budgets.
Another issue is the additional parking space needed for ESBs based on charging needs. Berlin said the NYCSBUS yard would need to be 25-percent larger to park ESBs with traditional bollards and in-ground chargers.
“That is certainly an issue for us. It is an additional cost of these vehicles,” he said. “It requires more parking, which is more space, and you know in New York City that’s expensive.”
He added NYCBUS has considered overhead chargers, portable charger carts and even induction or wireless charging.
So far, NYSERDA administers $500 million from the state Bond Act through the New York School Bus Incentive Program, with another $100 million added in the state budget, for a total of $600 million earmarked specifically for electric school buses and associated infrastructure.
Disa said that when NYSERDA incentives are combined with State Education Department aid formulas, “for a lot of districts…inclusive of the charging costs, it can be the equivalent, or even it can be cheaper to acquire an electric school bus than a diesel or combustion bus right now,” with no additional local tax impact.
Still, those funds represent the early days of a far longer and more expensive transition. With roughly 50,000 school buses operating statewide, and only a fraction on the road being electric or in the pipeline, tens of thousands of vehicles will still need to be replaced by 2040. Claridge argued that even with the extension, “meeting these goals will ultimately require additional time, state investment and flexibility.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce the return of the Clean School Bus Program by next month. Nearly $2.5 billion must still be awarded nationwide. How much will go to New York school districts and bus companies remains to be seen.
Three electric school buses operated by school bus contractor Logan Bus in New York City.
Utilities and Infrastructure: ‘Early and Often’ Engagement
Beyond fleet costs, infrastructure and utility partnerships may pose the steepest near-term challenges for school districts and contractors.
“One of the critical elements that distinguish an electric school bus deployment compared to a traditional combustion bus is you do have to have a couple new stakeholders in the room, and one of those is your electric utility,” Disa said. “We recommend until we’re blue in the face that you’ve got to start talking to your electric utility early and often.”
Through NYSERDA-funded fleet electrification plans, school districts like Naples CSD are working with engineering firms to assess route energy needs, depot capacity, interconnection timelines and likely utility bill impacts. Disa said many districts currently have enough available capacity to support at least a few buses while longer-term upgrades are planned and financed, but those efforts take time and coordination.
Infrastructure upgrades are Naples CSD’s “biggest hurdle,” Elwell added. He said the district currently has adequate electricity for adding one more ESB to the fleet before utility provider NYSEG will need to upgrade the transmission line.
Claridge noted that utilities and the broader grid are central to whether the mandate can be implemented on the ground. “Fully transitioning [to electric buses] is impossible without adequate power grid capacity, charging infrastructure and funding,” he said.
Disa again pointed to NYSERDA’s fleet electrification plans led by consultants to help.
“These plans receive input from utilities, which can help determine infrastructure needs and next steps,” he explained.
For example, First Student announced Tuesday it is partnering with Con Edison and NYSERDA to demonstrate First Charge, the school bus contractor’s above-ground charging infrastructure. The organizations claim that installation could reduce infrastructure costs by 20 percent through less construction.
First Student is adding 40 ESBs in New York and is considering expanded solar and creating a smart energy hub.
“Deploying electric school buses at scale requires more than vehicles. It requires the right infrastructure, technology and utility partnership,” said Kevin Matthews, head of electrification at First Student. “Working with Con Edison, we’ve demonstrated a more efficient approach that can help overcome some of the cost and construction challenges that have traditionally made fleet electrification difficult in dense urban environments.”
Con Ed and NYSERDA are funding the project, which includes six bus vouchers through the New York School Bus Incentive Program and four retrofit buses.
Third-Party Testing and Policy Uncertainty
Another unresolved issue is a state law passed in last year’s budget requiring independent third-party testing of electric school bus range on specific routes and under varying conditions—a provision Claridge and other stakeholders describe as “overly complex” and disconnected from market realities.
Claridge said NYSERDA “continues to grapple with the implementation of this overly complex legislation,” and that the working group tasked with developing a regulatory framework “appears to have stalled” due to the law’s lack of clarity and practicality. He characterized the agency as “attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole.”
Disa said NYSERDA is using empirical fleet data and route planning results to answer the core questions lawmakers raised, such as how climate and terrain affect electric range. He noted NYSERDA convened a working group of industry stakeholders last September to help identify information that could benefit school bus operators and support industry stakeholders in finding their own paths to compliance.
‘Not a Time to Sit Back and Wait’
Everyone agrees that, despite the five-year extension, school districts cannot afford to wait.
Claridge emphasized that while the electric school bus mandate “has clear value,” the current policy framework “requires revision” to create space for innovation and realistic funding mechanisms.
Disa framed the extension as an opportunity for districts to move from planning to pilots and then to scale deployments, not as a pause button.
“Even though there is some extra time … it’s not a time to sit back and wait for years to elapse,” he said.
Districts that haven’t started a fleet plan should begin now, he added, while those with plans in hand should work with NYSERDA to get their first buses on the road and then scale up.
NYAPT’s Christopher said two important challenges remain.
“School districts vote on their budgets here, so regardless of the state mandates, if local district residents say no, buses are not purchased. This remains unresolved to date, putting a district in an untenable situation,” he explained. “Secondly, we have multiple utility companies operating in the state, and they all do business differently. It’s difficult for a school district or NYERSDA, for that matter, to sort through all the different rules and processes each utility follows in order to build out infrastructure.
“There needs to be more coordination and more attention to districts that need infrastructure built out if the mandate holds in five years,” he continued. “Districts need certainty from utilities regarding costs and timelines to secure voter approval and funding. It’s complicated to say the least.”
President Donald Trump speaks during an event at the White House on Aug. 6, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A proposal by President Donald Trump to give $5,000 to each American adult if Republicans retain control of the U.S. House and Senate in November would “explode” the national deficit and worsen inflation, according to an analysis issued Thursday by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
The committee, whose board includes economists, bankers and former elected and administration officials from both political parties, estimates Trump’s plan would cost roughly $1.2 trillion.
“This proposal is fiscally dangerous, economically backwards, and fundamentally unserious,” Maya MacGuineas, the committee’s president, said in a statement. “It’s hard to understand how anyone could look at our current fiscal and economic situation and think we need to borrow another $1.2 trillion to send everyone cash.”
Trump announced the “Trump dividend” Wednesday night during the latter half of a nearly two-hour keynote speech at the Republican National Committee’s first midterm convention.
Trump told attendees at the political gathering in Dallas, Texas, that his “only caveat” is that Americans spend the money in the United States.
“We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money,” he said during the livestreamed speech.
Ultimately, Congress would need to appropriate the funds.
Debt, deficits, inflation
MacGuineas pointed out in her statement that the nation’s debt “is now as large as our entire economy, deficits are running $2 trillion per year, inflation is about 3.5%, and the 10-year Treasury yield is approaching 5%.”
“This half-baked political scheme would make this all worse – exploding the deficit, ginning up inflation, and further driving up the cost of borrowing throughout the economy.”
The national debt sits at $40 trillion to date, which breaks down to $117,446 per taxpayer, according to a tracker by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News following Trump’s speech that the dividend would be funded by tariff revenue.
“What the president’s just saying is … if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you’re going to share in some of the benefit of this incredible wealth that we’re creating in the United States of America,” he said to Fox News host Bret Baier.
But the expected revenue generated by Trump’s executive tariffs would only cover one-tenth of the cost of sending $5,000 to each American adult, according to an analysis Thursday from the Tax Foundation.
The organization that identifies itself as pro-economic growth, and generally opposes tax increases, estimates Trump’s new tariffs will bring in roughly $124.9 billion in 2027.
“A deficit-financed dividend payment of this scale would signal to markets that the US is not serious about getting its fiscal house in order. It would risk further rises in interest rates, add to inflationary pressures, and worsen the very problems that are trying to be ‘solved’ by the proposal,” said Erica York, a senior economist with the Tax Foundation, in a written statement. The organization opposes Trump’s tariff policies.
Tariff promises
This is not Trump’s first time promising to send what he describes as dividends to Americans — though none of the payments materialized.
The president said in November 2025 he would send $2,000 to Americans from tariff revenue that he falsely said would reach “trillions” of dollars.
Trump’s emergency tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court in February, and the government is in the process of refunding nearly $170 billion in illegal import taxes.
Trump and then-special government employee and billionaire Elon Musk said in March 2025 they would send $5,000 refund checks to Americans as a result of savings created by the project titled the Department of Government Oversight. The ultrawealthy tech mogul went public with his plan without consultation from Congress, which controls the nation’s proverbial purse strings.
In spring of 2020, Trump’s name appeared on $1,200 stimulus checks for individuals, $2,400 for married couples, sent out as part of a $2.2 trillion initial COVID-19 relief package approved by Congress.
Tallmadge City Schools in Ohio is eliminating transportation for hundreds of high school students this school year as the district works to reduce costs amid funding concerns and a series of failed levies, reported ABC 5.
According to the news report, Superintendent Steve Wood said the district will no longer provide transportation for any high school students, leaving about 800 students without bus routes. Elementary and middle school students who live within two miles of their schools will also be ineligible for district transportation.
The changes reportedly return the district to Ohio’s minimum transportation requirements. State law requires school districts to transport students in kindergarten through eighth grade who live more than two miles from their schools.
Wood acknowledged that the reductions could create difficulties for families and said via the article that the district is taking steps to ease the transition. Schools will adjust their arrival and dismissal procedures to accommodate an expected increase in vehicles during student drop-off and pick-up periods.
Wood is reportedly discussing possible transportation options with Akron METRO Regional Transit Authority, which operates a bus route through Tallmadge. It remains unclear whether the public transit service could provide a workable alternative for affected students.
According to the article, district officials hope to restore the eliminated transportation services next school year. However, Wood warned that continued funding reductions could prevent the district from doing so and lead to additional cuts.
“The reality is tough,” Wood said via the report. “This is a cost-cutting spiral, and if we don’t receive additional funds for next year, it just gets uglier. It means more teachers out. It means more electives gone. More academic opportunities are gone and less clubs.”
The transportation reductions mark the district’s second round of budget cuts. Tallmadge eliminated teaching and administrative positions last school year and cut additional teaching positions this year. The district also increased its pay-to-play fee for student activities.
Another funding levy will reportedly appear on the November ballot. Instead of seeking a property tax based on home values, the district is proposing an earned income tax based on residents’ wages. Wood said additional revenue will be critical to preventing further reductions to staffing, academic programs, extracurricular activities and transportation services.
RENO, Nev. — School districts nationwide are opening the new school year with less money for student transportation, and three sessions at STN EXPO West challenged directors to change how and to whom they make their case for resources.
Ryan Hahn of Strategic School Consultants presented back-to-back sessions, “Budgeting in Uncertain Times: Navigating the Fiscal Cliff Without Losing Ground” on July 12 and “Advocating for Resources: How to Get a Seat at the Table Before the Cuts Are Already Made” on July 13. Another session presented later during STN EXPO West on July 14 by Tim Purvis focused on using AI to help with budgeting decisions.
Hahn started as a school bus driver in college 26 years ago and went on to direct transportation, maintenance and operations for districts in Washington state and Oregon. He earned a chief business official certification through California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), served as chief financial officer of a 25,000-student Washington district, and now owns Strategic School Consultants.
Federal pandemic relief is spent, Hahn said, and districts that used that one-time money to fund recurring positions are paying for it now. Add inflation, fuel volatility and liability costs — he said insurance at his former district rose 150 percent in 10 years — and operations departments are absorbing across-the-board reduction targets.
“Every operational unit is going to have to cut 10 percent of their budget,” Hahn said, describing a conversation he said is playing out across the country. “You cannot defer a bus ride.”
His central argument was that transportation directors lose budget fights before the budget is built. Most, he said, live entirely in an operational network — covering routes, filling trips, solving problems — and never develop the personal and strategic networks that determine who and what gets funded.
“Your value as the leader of the unit dictates what you get in your unit, every single time,” he said.
That means lateral and vertical relationships with principals, executive directors and the superintendent, not just the CFO. It also means translating requests into the language cabinet members already use. Hahn told attendees to find their board’s adopted strategic goals and tie every ask to one of them.
He urged directors to request a copy of their district’s position control, the roster of every funded position with wages, steps and employer-paid benefits. Staffing consumes 86 percent to 90 percent of a transportation budget, he said, yet many directors have never seen the document. Districts resist adding lines to position control because it shifts staffing ratios districtwide, he said, so directors who need to pilot a new function should ask instead for substitute dollars or contracted services, which are treated as temporary expenses.
Hahn also warned that efficiency can be punished in reimbursement states. After cutting roughly $1 million in overtime at an Oregon district, he said, his CFO called him into a meeting but not to thank him. The savings reduced the following year’s reimbursement. He was told to spend the money on purchasing new buses.
Funding models differ sharply, he noted. Oregon reimburses roughly 70 cents on the dollar. California reimburses about 60 percent of eligible operating costs but excludes capital purchases such as school buses. Washington funds based on ridership, routes and destinations and maintains a vehicle replacement fund, though the legislature recently extended the replacement cycle from 13 years to 15.
On electric school buses, Hahn advised directors to follow board priorities but to be candid about range and infrastructure limits. Remaining grant money, he added, generally requires an older diesel bus as a trade-in. He cautioned against buying every technology product from a single vendor.
“It costs a lot to get divorced and remarried to another product,” he added.
Deferred maintenance was a recurring theme. Directors should cost out preventive maintenance cycles, track fuel economy and failures by brand, and bring trend data, not feelings, to the business office. Hahn told the room not to volunteer training and conference dollars when cuts are demanded.
For advocacy beyond the district, he recommended working through state school business and transportation associations rather than lobbying independently and aligning with the National Association for Pupil Transportation where interests match.
Consultant Ryan Hahn discusses the necessary budget language student transporters must know to become better negotiators with district administrators on July 12, 2026 at STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada. (Photo by Ryan Gray)
In a separate session, Purvis, principal and founder of consultancy Pupil Transportation Information and a former California director of transportation with four decades in the industry as well as a California FMCAT member, walked attendees through using artificial intelligence in budget decision-making. His message: AI is a tool, not a decision maker, and its value depends almost entirely on the prompt and the data behind it. And, of course, verify the result.
Purvis demonstrated a case study built from an actual client — 58 approved driver positions with 12 vacancies, 20 general education routes, 30 special education routes, an aging fleet and rising overtime. His actual prompt ran more than two pages. The output flagged driver vacancies as the leading cost driver, projected expenditures rising from $4.8 million to $5.8 million over four years, and recommended stabilizing labor before expanding the fleet. It also provided bell schedule optimization, which Purvis called one of the largest budget levers after labor, without being prompted.
The three-year projection, he said, is what secured the school district with a fully funded vehicle replacement schedule.
He cautioned against uploading a proposed budget that has not been adjusted midyear, said inaccurate data should be left out entirely, and warned that student identifiers routinely appear in routing exports sent outside the district. Once uploaded to an AI system, he said, it cannot be recalled.
“Verify all calculations,” Purvis said. “We’re human, we make mistakes.”
Article written with the assistance of AI and session transcripts.
Will costs keep going up for school transportation operations in the 2026-2027
school year? It depends. Several factors impacted this past year’s school transportation budget, and the most notable line-item increase was likely to your fuel costs.
New school district budgets are rolling out this month for most operations, and I’ve been told that transportation department budgets remained flat or down in most cases. What is going to change if you don’t take action to defend against future fuel volatility? More cuts? Ugh.
I recently spoke with an executive at a private school bus contractor, who was surprised to learn that school districts rarely use fuel hedging. He explained that the strategy helps create more predictable costs and protects his company and customers from sudden fuel price swings.
A transportation director I spoke with described fuel hedging as gambling, but I see it differently. It’s a practical way to manage costs and reduce budget uncertainty. While fuel prices can rise or fall, recent trends suggest increases are more likely than decreases.
School districts should consider this strategy because fuel price volatility directly threatens core operations and educational priorities in a way that private companies can often pass on to customers. Recent years have shown districts scrambling, consolidating routes, dipping into reserves, deferring maintenance or fleet purchases, or cutting programs, when diesel fuel spikes.
Hedging treats fuel cost risk like insurance: You pay a premium (in the form of potential opportunity cost or fees) for protection against worst-case scenarios. For entities with predictable, high-volume consumption like school buses, it aligns well with annual budgeting cycles.
Will fuel volatility change the way school transportation operators consider purchasing new school buses? I predict we will see higher consideration for alternative fuels like propane and electric instead of diesel or gasoline.
Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in the Houston, Texas area—the largest school bus operation in the state—has no current plans to purchase diesel school buses as it focuses on propane and electric, said Bobby Williams, assistant director of transportation for fleet maintenance.
According to an STN readership survey of 636 subscribers conducted in April, respondents indicated purchase intent of new diesel buses, engines and components at 26 percent, new gasoline buses at 11 percent and new alternative fuel buses and infrastructure (propane, electric, CNG) at 10 percent.
The school bus and larger commercial truck industry will need to adjust to the EPA’s 2027 heavy-duty emissions rule that tightens nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions limits. The EPA is expected to release its revised final rule this month to address increased production costs tied to major engineering redesigns and, more specifically, warranty costs.
The EPA is also expected to announce the return of the five-year, $5-billion Clean School Bus Program, which has been on hiatus since January of last year. The agency indicated in an RFI published earlier this year that it was considering adding biodiesel and renewable diesel as fundable fuel types.
Another tactic to address rising fuel costs is the use of technology. Have you leveraged artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and your routing software partners to help? AI-powered routing software analyzes traffic, weather, construction, and student address data to create the most efficient, fuel-saving routes. The integration of onboard tablets allows for turn-by-turn directions
and student manifests. These systems adapt in real time, helping buses avoid delays and improve on-time performance. These systems help cut fuel use, reduce
emissions and improve operational costs.
Fleets should consider utilizing more data-driven decision making in their operations. AI platforms collect and analyze transportation data to identify trends, inefficiencies and improvement opportunities. Dashboards visualize everything from ridership to route efficiency to behavior incidents, helping administrators make informed decisions. Improved operations, better budgeting and resource allocation, and stronger alignment with academic goals. By leveraging AI and emerging technologies, school districts are turning the daily commute into a strategic asset.
The road to and from school can be a dynamic, data-rich and fuel-consuming journey, but it’s all mission critical for any school transportation operation. Economic hardships force us to adapt and transform the outcomes should enhance performance, safety and empower transportation teams with the tools they
need to succeed in the future.
I recommend considering fresh ideas and leaning on your business partners as you look towards the 2026-2027 school year and beyond.
Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the July 2026 issue of School Transportation News.
A 2023-25 budget provision granting a sales tax exemption to data centers was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in July 2023.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau said in March that the tax break will cost the state more than $2 billion in sales tax revenue, mostly from massive data centers in Beaver Dam, Port Washington and Mount Pleasant. When the budget was approved in July 2023, hyperscale data centers were so new the fiscal bureau didn’t estimate how much an exemption would affect state tax collections.
While the high cost has drawn scrutiny, the incentive was originally designed to drive economic growth. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 38 states offer tax incentives on data centers.
Wisconsin has about 50 data centers, largely in the Milwaukee and Madison areas.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu struck a compromise to spend $1.8 billion in surplus state funds on tax rebates, special education funding and lower property taxes. The state Senate rejected the proposal Wednesday night.
The rejection leaves the money on the table for the next governor and Legislature to use in the next biennial budget, raising the stakes for who wins the November election.
Lead Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and several of the Democratic contenders slammed the proposal, though Democrat Missy Hughes criticized her opponents for opposing it.
A bipartisan deal struck between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Republican legislative leaders to spend $1.8 billion of Wisconsin’s projected budget surplus failed in the Senate late Wednesday night after days of criticism that put both Evers and GOP leaders at odds with members of their own parties.
The fallout has become a blame game over who is responsible for the deal’s failure:
Republicans blamed Democrats for not being willing to provide assistance to Wisconsinites.
Senate Democrats blamed Republicans and Evers for not involving them in negotiations and described the bill as “reckless” and “irresponsible” spending.
Several Assembly Democrats criticized the deal for not providing long-term structural changes to education funding or property taxes.
Evers blamed both Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the likely GOP gubernatorial nominee in the governor’s race.
Tiffany called the proposal a “backroom relief deal” that “fails to deliver lasting relief to Wisconsin taxpayers.”
The Democratic gubernatorial candidates split on whether the bill was a good idea.
The underlying reason for all of the statements, social media posts and comments debating the surplus spending is that future control of the Capitol hangs in the balance come November, said Anthony Chergosky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
“It’s very interesting that this agreement was struck by three politicians who will not be in office this time next year, when the upcoming budget process is taking place,” Chergosky said. “There are a lot of people involved in the politics of this agreement who will be around potentially and are kind of wondering about the wisdom of three lame-duck members of state government striking a significant deal that will have potential ripple effects, whether they be positive or negative.”
Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who are not seeking reelection this year, announced the deal on Monday. It followed months of negotiations that began after state leaders learned of the projected surplus in January. The nearly $2.4 billion surplus far exceeded projections made last year as lawmakers crafted the state’s 2025-27 budget.
The deal would have directed over $300 million to Wisconsin school districts through special education reimbursement, another $300 million for school districts to lower property taxes and $870 million through income tax rebates for those who filed state income taxes in 2024. It also would have permanently eliminated state income taxes on tips and overtime wages, which Evers vetoed in Republican-led bills in April.
Here are a few lessons we learned from the failed surplus deal debate.
Democrats are increasingly splitting with Evers
Not too long ago, legislative Democrats had to be ready to defend Evers’ vetoes from Republican overrides.
This week, all 15 Senate Democrats and 32 in the Assembly broke with the two-term governor on the surplus deal. Ten Assembly Democrats, including several running in close districts this fall, voted with Republicans to pass the bill in the Assembly.
In statements and comments, many looped Evers in with Vos and LeMahieu as lame-duck elected officials leaving the Capitol in the coming months.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, left, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, right, speak during a Republican press conference on June 8, 2023, in the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, Wis. (Drake White-Bergey / Wisconsin Watch)
“This is a completely reckless proposal stitched together in a backroom deal by three people who will not be running around and won’t be here when the consequences of a multibillion-dollar deficit comes home to roost,” Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, said ahead of the Senate vote. “It’s simply something I can’t support.”
Even the majority of the seven top Democratic candidates for governor criticized the deal. Only Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., directly supported the surplus spending plan.
“@GovEvers bargain with the GOP is bad for Wisconsin,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Francesca Hong, D-Madison, said in a social media post this week explaining her no vote. “This backroom deal is a payday loan taken out at the expense of our children, our infrastructure, our economy, and our future.”
Evers this week did not hesitate to return criticism to the lawmakers of his party. He told CBS58 that Democrats calling the bill irresponsible was “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Wisconsin’s kids and schools aren’t going to get the investments they desperately need this year because Tom Tiffany and a few Republican and Democratic lawmakers chose to blow up a bipartisan plan to invest in our K-12 schools, lower property taxes, and help working families afford rising costs, all because they’d rather do what’s best for the next election than what’s right for the people of our state,” Evers said in a statement immediately after the Senate vote. “So many Wisconsinites feel left behind, frustrated, and disillusioned by politics these days because they think a lot of politicians in the Capitol are only here to serve themselves. And, today, they’re right.”
The debate over the surplus deal saw legislative Republicans defending Evers against criticism from Democratic lawmakers. Several thanked Evers for being willing to compromise and work with Republicans.
“You’re going to hear from my Democratic colleagues that they want to save the money because they want to invest it in growing the size of government. That’s what they’re going to say, even though they might not use those words, we know the truth. We want to give it back. Some Democrats want to keep it,” Vos said on the Assembly floor. “Luckily, Tony Evers isn’t one of those. He actually had the ability to say, let’s compromise, let’s each give, let’s find a consensus, because the people of Wisconsin expect us to do better than to just stand up and shake our fist.”
Lawmakers are reflected in the marble wall as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers delivers his final State of the State address at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Feb. 17, 2026, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
On the other hand, many Democratic lawmakers urged caution against approving the spending for the projected surplus when there are economic uncertainties at the federal level.
Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, who is running for governor, said she was “shocked” to agree with Tiffany and state Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, a hard-line fiscal conservative, in their criticism of the deal.
“This is a deal that does not help us fix the significant long-term structural problems we have, namely the way we have robbed our children of their futures in defunding public education,” she said during the Joint Finance Committee meeting Tuesday.
Nass, who is not seeking reelection, was one of three Republicans who sided with Senate Democrats on Wednesday in opposing the deal. Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Sen. Rob Hutton, R-Brookfield, also voted against it.
Nass asked Senate Republicans to reject the proposal for concerns about financial stability.
“I’ve enjoyed standing up for we, the people, especially financially, as I’m doing this evening, and until my final day, I will vote in a way that financially protects those I represent,” Nass said during Wednesday night’s Senate floor debate. “What we’re doing now is mortgaging our future and our children’s future, to some extent, for the temporary convenience of the present. And the only way that can stop is for us to resist it and to vote no.”
The surplus as an election issue
Legislative inaction on the surplus likely means the next governor and whoever holds majorities in the Assembly and the Senate in January will control how that money is or is not spent.
Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, D-Racine, told reporters on Thursday that future election criticism about the deal’s failure should be directed at Republicans.
“Republicans are in the majority, and they failed to get this bill out of the state Senate with their own members,” she said. “That’s something that they’re going to have to answer for, as well as, of course, 16 years of failing to address these issues and creating an affordability crisis.”
Tiffany said if he is elected governor, the surplus funds will “be returned to taxpayers where they belong.”
It’s possible, for the slew of candidates running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, that this is a turning point in what has otherwise been a quiet campaign so far, Chergosky said.
“This might be the thing that gives the nomination race a little kick in the pants or a little nudge to start getting moving because we are seeing some daylight between the candidates,” Chergosky said.
For example, Hughes, the lone Democratic gubernatorial candidate who directly supported the deal, in a social media post on Thursday criticized Tiffany but slammed, without naming names, “certain self-serving Democratic candidates for governor who would rather boost their own personal political ambitions than serve our kids and taxpayers.”
“Imagine if those candidates had acted like the leaders they profess to be. Imagine if they had paused before sending press releases and Twitter threads and jumping to name calling. Imagine if they had set aside their bruised egos and leaned in,” Hughes said. “Ultimately, they could still have voted no or opposed the bill, but they never even gave it due diligence. That’s not leadership, that’s gamesmanship. These Democratic candidates exposed themselves for lacking the maturity and responsibility a governor must have if they are to move our entire state forward.”
Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes said the deal delivered “meaningful dollars” to schools, but did not fix the state’s “broken system” to help working people.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary under Evers, criticized the deal negotiations for not being done in public.
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said “a one-year property tax break is not a long-term affordability plan.”
Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez called the deal “a compromise that’s far from perfect.”
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After months of negotiation, Gov. Tony Evers and Republican leaders in the Legislature said Monday they’ve reached a deal that would spend down the state’s budget surplus on tax relief and education.
The roughly $1.9 billion deal, which is expected to go before lawmakers for a vote this week, includes $850 million in direct payments to taxpayers and the elimination of state income tax for overtime pay and tipped earnings. It would also boost spending on K-12 education by $600 million.
That school funding figure is split between general school aid and increasing the state’s special education reimbursement rate, which has been a point of contention from Evers’ team since the passage last summer of the two-year state budget. Since that time, higher-than-expected costs of special education lowered the total amount received by school districts from the state.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Evers touted the deal as a win for schools, with compromises for Republican tax priorities.
“Money for schools is obviously the most important thing for me,” Evers said. “We’re in a position to actually compromise and have Republicans and Democrats — at least at the leadership level — getting something done.”
That comment alludes to some fracturing within the parties themselves, with several lawmakers putting out immediate statements condemning the deal. But Evers expressed confidence that a majority of lawmakers would vote to approve the plan.
In separate statements, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said the deal would put the state’s surplus toward tax relief.
“We’re sending (the surplus) back to help families with the pressure of increasing costs, reward hard work, and to continue investing in schools to help stabilize rising property taxes,” said Vos.
Evers’ office said that the direct payment checks, which would total $600 per married couple or $300 per individual, would be mailed out by November. Evers spokesperson Britt Cudaback called that provision a central priority for Senate Republicans during negotiations. The governor’s office says 3 million people are expected to receive those checks, for a total cost to the state of about $850 million.
“This deal will provide immediate relief with $600 in surplus refund payments and provide permanent property and income tax relief for Wisconsin families,” said LeMahieu in his statement.
While the state Legislature has adjourned for the year, both the Senate and Assembly would need to pass this deal for it to become law. That means that a special session of the Legislature will be called. According to the governor’s office, that path will be expedited, with the Legislature’s budget committee expected to move it forward on Tuesday, and the full Legislature set to debate it as early as Wednesday.
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