Transportation director reports fleet usage, CNG cost and staffing gaps; district to auction high‑mileage buses

Transportation Director Mister Douglas presented the district’s annual transportation report Thursday, saying the system covers a large geographic area and that operations continue to face driver vacancies and aging vehicles.

Douglas told trustees that the commonly reported TEA figure (which combines morning and afternoon counts) can overstate unique students served and that the district transports “just over a thousand” students each afternoon. He said the district’s compressed natural gas (CNG) rate from the city remains $1.75 per unit and provided comparative diesel usage and miles data. The director said there are three open driver positions and that the district plans an auction in four to six weeks to sell buses with high mileage (some over 200,000 miles) to improve fleet averages.

Douglas said the district has no buses on order and estimated lead time for new vehicles is three to six months depending on the model and vendor. He also noted a new wrapped activity bus logged a little more than 120 trips in the past school year and has been shared across many groups.

Board members asked how extracurricular trips are counted; Douglas said the TEA route report covers route services only and that extracurricular trip student counts are handled separately in TEA submissions (only miles are required).