#9 Postby TexasStooge » Mon Aug 29, 2005 8:27 am
Schools feel pinch of fuel prices
Districts struggle to cut costs, consumption to balance tight budgets
By KIM BREEN / The Dallas Morning News
Pity the school bus.
At 8 miles per gallon or worse, even Hummers earn mileage envy from buses.
And as fuel prices continue to skyrocket, the pressure’s on to savor every last drop of diesel.
Gone are the days when well-meaning bus drivers could make extra stops to drop students at their driveways.
And there will be no more waiting in a running bus for the field trip to wrap up.
“We practice responsible idling,” said Andrew Forrester, director of transportation for the Plano school district. “My goal is to live within my budget, whatever it takes.”
Soaring energy prices are forcing school districts around the region to ratchet up fuel budgets in a year when Texas schools have little money to spare.
The Plano district has tweaked bus routes to cut the number of stops to improve vehicle mileage.
Carrollton-Farmers Branch has replaced some air-conditioning equipment to improve efficiency.
Districts across the country are feeling the pinch and looking for ways to cut costs and consumption, said Ron Skinner, director of government and public affairs for the Association of School Business Officials International. In a recent informal survey, 96 percent of members who responded said rising fuel costs were adversely affecting their districts.
“It’s a smaller part of the district’s budget than something like health care, but it still can have a huge impact when the prices go up,” he said.
Similarly, cities also are feeling the heat and are keeping offices a little warmer this summer or buying hybrid vehicles with high gas mileage.
The shock is hitting some school systems hard.
Just before the Carroll school district approved its 2005-06 budget last week, staffers scrambled to add tens of thousands of dollars to its transportation fuel budget because of rising costs. The final result: a 53 percent increase in that fuel budget from last year, to $235,000. Other budgeted utility costs shot up $200,000 to $3.4 million.
‘Year of unknowns’
“It’s just a year of unknowns,” said Harry Ingalls, the district’s assistant superintendent for operations.
Districts are dealing with two wild cards — the volatile energy market and uncertainty about the future of the state’s school finance system, which is the subject of litigation pending before the state supreme court.
What school districts do know is that expensive fuel is forcing them to retool many parts of the budget.
“It affects things like extracurricular activities,” Mr. Ingalls said. “Every year we have kids transported all over the state of Texas.” Sending band members and football players to Abilene, for example, takes 11 charter buses and a lot more money this year.
In the Rockwall district, officials cited fuel costs as part of the reason they increased lunch prices this summer. Rising petroleum prices affect the cost of producing plastic cutlery and trays, for example, officials said.
The fuel budget for the Denton district was set months ago at $512,000. Even if prices stop rising, the district could wind up spending $150,000 more for fuel than it anticipated, forcing officials to find the money elsewhere, said Gene Holloway, director of planning and transportation for the district.
As he monitors news about the industry, “I get white-knuckled,” Mr. Holloway said. “I get very nervous.”
He said inadequate state funding already caused the district to drop 1,500 students from its bus rolls a couple years ago after it increased the minimum distance students must live from school to qualify for free rides.
“It was truly a choice between gasoline and teachers,” he said. (The longer distances put Denton in line with state regulations, which most other districts also now follow.)
Mr. Holloway said Denton is also paying more for vehicle parts and other transportation expenses this year as suppliers pass along their own fuel price increases. Tight money is also forcing his department to put off bodywork and other nonessential work, such as installing new video surveillance equipment.
The Duncanville district began curtailing transportation as fuel prices started to rise.
Field trip limits
“We’re continuing a restriction on field trips to the metroplex only,” spokeswoman Tammy Kuykendall said. “Only two field trips per grade level per year will be allowed.”
The district budgeted $67,315 for fuel last year but spent $138,589. Ms. Kuykendall said the district had enough money in other areas to cover the overage.
Not everyone has been blindsided by fuel price increases.
“We saw it coming,” said Deanne Hullender, public information director for Dallas County Schools, an agency that provides many services, including transportation, for area schools. It contracts with nine of 14 districts in the county, including the Dallas district, for busing and transports 45,000 to 50,000 students a day.
When fuel prices shoot up, the agency passes costs along to clients. But last year’s price hike was steep enough to soften the blow this year. The Dallas district, for example, paid the agency $1.4 million in 2003-04 for fuel and budgeted $2 million in 2004-05, but expects this year’s cost to rise less than 3 percent.
All schools get tax breaks on fuel, and benefit from buying in bulk. Some also have locked in prices with utilities for specified periods of time to help keep costs low, which is what the Dallas district has done with its electricity and natural gas providers, district budget director John McGee said. The district’s electricity budget increased from $17 million to $20 million this fiscal year, but electricity and gas rates are locked until December 2006.
The Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district added 20 percent — $1 million — to its electricity budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year. That’s just to cover fee increases; the district hopes consumption will actually drop.
The district encourages conservation in the classroom, but Mark Hyatt, assistant superintendent for support services, said the biggest reductions come from updating equipment to make air conditioning more efficient.
Outsourcing bus service to Dallas County Schools has also saved money, he said.
C-FB, like other districts, eliminates costs where it can to make up for higher energy costs. A couple of years ago it cut back on custodial services. Floors don’t get mopped as frequently as they once did.
A common strategy
It’s a common strategy, said Mr. Skinner of the business officials organization. Maintenance is often the first to suffer. It’s not like schools can go without utilities.
In his group’s survey, many respondents said they were trying to conserve fuel by rerouting school buses or reconsidering trips other than those to and from schools.
Some were looking beyond budgetary solutions.
“I see ‘praying’ listed,” he said.
Staff writers Herb Booth and LaKisha Ladson contributed to this article.
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Gas shortages to come?
), and we'll get our ears full of... well, full of sad tales about supply, shipping, production. Very sad, actually 
You will still be able to go anywhere outside the obviously storm-damaged areas and buy all of the gas that you want. No rationing, therefore no credibility in their excuses for gouging the crap out of us (again). Before, it was the seasonal brainwashing - where we were conditioned to pay more at the busiest driving seasons (again, all the gas you want) under the guise of "tight supplies" and "increased demand". Now it seems - literally - that the wind can change direction and prices leap up.
Actually, I do but I will remain silent out of respect for those lost!
