School buses are expensive. Matt Schumacher, superintendent of the Clarkdale-Jerome Elementary School District in northern Arizona, has crunched the numbers.

The cost to replace a traditional, diesel-powered school bus is about $200,000 every three years. And that’s just one bus, which will also incur fuel and maintenance costs. An electric school bus comes with a price tag about two times the size, but with minimal additional costs.

When looking at his district’s budget, Schumacher saw an opportunity to save on the cost of a bus while reinvesting that savings into projects that are long overdue.

So, the district applied for a grant through the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean School Bus Program, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The $400,000 grant the district received covered the cost of an electric bus. The district had to chip in about $20,000, a substantially smaller tab when compared to the cost of replacing a diesel bus.

“It’s a tight budget. We don’t have the economy of scale in purchasing power that larger districts have and the wear and tear on buildings can be significant over four seasons with both triple digits and below freezing temperatures, including snow. The money saved will help with capital improvements,” he said. 

“To flip the script,” he shared, “if we would have had to invest in a new bus…it would have wiped out the lion’s share of our capital reserves for ongoing repairs and safety enhancements.”

Improvements are desperately needed for the school district. With little wiggle room in the rural district’s budget, it’s been a challenge to find ways to fund projects — even if those projects are priorities. The one that weighs most heavily on his mind is campus security. 

The district needed to find funds to secure the perimeter of its school and potentially create a secure vestibule inside the front office, like larger districts in more urban areas have done. By offsetting a large chunk of transportation costs with the grant, Schumacher created flexibility in his budget.

“Not getting the grant would have put us behind. It would have limited our ability to continue to make the necessary structural improvements that the campus needs,” he said. “For us, that’s money in the bank that can go to other uses.”

The Clarkdale-Jerome Elementary School District serves about 470 students in grades K-8 across a geographic area known as the Verde Valley in northern Arizona. Between Clarkdale and Jerome, a nearby town known for its haunted venues, the elevation changes by about 1,500 feet. 

The region, known for its mining past, is rural, mountainous and is somewhat of a darling — especially during the summer — when Phoenicians want to escape the rush of the city or the heat of the Valley. 

Even with tourism dollars, rural Arizona school districts, Schumacher said, can struggle to keep pace with needed updates without outside help. He called the grant the district received “transformative,” in that it created financial breathing room.

“It’s not too much of a stretch to say that not having to buy a new school bus directly impacts our steps to ensure the safety of students on a daily basis as we continue to secure our large rural campus. Those are the same dollars,” Schumacher said. “It allows us to invest in a 21st century learning environment for our students. We’ve done the moral thing for the future of these kids. We’re not just here to educate kids, but we’re here to care for the whole child.”

The savings from the EPA grant will allow the district to proactively address projects that have been deferred for years—creating a financial cushion for the district to invest in its future, instead of facing financial strain with every budget cycle.

Beyond the financial savings, Schumacher appreciates the positive environmental impact that an electric bus makes. He loves the idea that the neighborhood served by this bus will no longer hear a noisy, diesel-powered bus rolling through its streets.

“I absolutely have the moral conviction that we need to do more from an environmental standpoint to combat climate change and be environmentally-minded on this campus,” he said. “The difference of a diesel motor going through the neighborhood versus an electric bus, making no sound and giving off no emissions, sends a message to the entire community that the school district is forward thinking and invested in our future. However small, that aspect certainly factored into our decision to pursue the grant.”