The Clay County School Board approved moving forward with purchasing a new 84-passenger school bus.
School Board Chairman Benji Bailey said the bus would be the largest in the school system’s fleet. Bailey said the request to purchase the bus came from the administration.
“We currently have one, but unfortunately, it’s down,” Bailey said. “The last time we bought a bus this large, I think, was 2013. We try to obviously buy them, we budget every year for one or two, and this year it is the bigger bus.”
The bus will cost the school system an estimated $166,580. Bailey said the goal is for the bus to be used to take large classes on field trips.
“Hopefully, we could use this bus to transport an entire class rather than taking two buses,” Bailey said. “So maybe make us more efficient there and ease our strain on getting bus drivers to take trips and things of that sort when our classes do go on trips.”
Bailey said the cost of the bus exceeded expectations, but was not too concerning. Finance Director Ashley White said the school system’s transportation director was okay with the low bid.
“That line item may be a little bit short in the line item specific, but in that major category, we’ve still got enough to cover this without amending the budget,” Bailey said.
Finance Director Ashley White said the school system is piggybacking off a Sourcewell contract through Lincoln County to purchase the bus. The board unanimously approved the purchase.