Columbus Municipal School District trustees on Tuesday approved purchasing seven new school buses to add to its fleet.
Holly Rogers, chief financial officer for the district, told the board during a special-call meeting the total bid for the buses came back at $1,021,500, which will be covered by the district’s 3-mill note.
A 3-mill note is a short-term debt school districts, like CMSD, reserve for capital improvement projects. Rogers said the district will use it again to purchase seven more buses once the debt is paid off every three years.
“This is going to make us at full capacity of the bus numbers that we need,” Rogers said. “So the next time this debt comes around, that will be the beginning of the rotation.”
Rogers said the plan to rotate new buses into the fleet every three years has been in the works for a while.
“I’ve been talking about this since the day I came back here in 2020,” Rogers told The Dispatch. “… That’s the first thing I looked at, what could we do with our 3-mill note when we pay it off, and our district needs to make sure our fleet is kept up to date.”
The district’s most recent bus purchases, Rogers said, have been financed through the Mississippi Master Lease Purchase Program. The last two buses purchased through the program will be paid off in 2027 and 2029, she said.
The seven new buses consist of two 71-passenger athletic buses and five 77-passenger buses that will be used for regular bus routes.
Board President Robert Smith inquired about the need for the buses, asking what happened to the five spare buses the district has.
“Some of … our regular buses are in need of maintenance that he’s had to send in for repair, and now they’re starting to use those spare buses,” Interim Superintendent Craig Chapman told the board. “That’s what’s happening, the reason why we’re having to look at the additional buses, because we are using those spare buses and (we) don’t really have any available for any activities afterwards.”
Chapman said Waters Truck and Tractor Co., Inc. expects the buses to be ready by the end of September.
“… But after today, we’re going to go ahead and call them, give them the information and they can go ahead and start … preparing them for CMSD,” he told the board.
The board approved the purchase unanimously.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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