The White County Board of Education approved the allocation of a $607,000 state high-performance bonus to upgrade its transportation fleet.
White County earned the financial bonus by being one of 22 districts to achieve top testing scores. Director of Schools Kurt Dronebarger said the bus purchase will allow the system to better plan these major purchases.
“We discussed from a district level the need to get on a better budget cycle with our school bus purchases, a better accounting cycle so this this money would allow us to take the swing of of buses that we were normally purchase anyway, but it’ll get us on a better fiscal cycle,” Dronebarger said.
The district will spend $336,234 on school buses and allocate an estimated $100,000 to purchase five used vans. The remaining funds will be distributed directly to individual schools to allow parents and administrators to select projects for each school.
The vans will replace older vehicles that schools use to transport students to various programs and art contests. Dronebarger said many of the current vans have been taken out of commission due to safety concerns.
“I felt like this was from a district standpoint an opportunity to replenish our fleet and set up a program to make sure that they’re well maintained and they last as long as they can,” Dronebarger said.
The distribution to each school will take place at a rate of $50 per student. Dronebarger said principals can use the money for visible, tangible projects such as new playground equipment or special student performances.
“I feel very strongly that a lot of this money needs to go back to the schools,” Dronebarger said. “Their performance, their hard work in the classrooms, from the students to the staff to the to the families that get them to school every day, they need to see this reward go back to them.”
To cover the exact costs of the transportation upgrades and the student allocations, the board approved pulling a maximum of $9,641 from the unassigned fund balance. However, recent enrollment drops mean the district will likely spend less than the projected $180,550 on the school bonuses, reducing the need for the extra funds.