SAN DIEGO — Spiking fuel prices are costing school districts a lot of money. It has them heading down a road that's blowing the budget.
“We're about $80,000 over on the budget,” said Tim Purvis, Poway Unified’s Director of Transportation. “We've seen about a 71% increase in diesel and over a 40% increase in unleaded.”
Purvis has been doing this for 38 years and has never seen anything like it.
“What's unusual is this has happened quickly,” Purvis said. “It happened between December, January to the current situation here - so our fear is how long it will last.”
It's a fear school leaders are experiencing all over the county because every dollar that goes into a gas tank is one less dollar going into education.
“We're an expense to the general operating fund and that's the same fund that supports your kids, and our kids in the classroom,” said Purvis.
Poway Unified has 155 buses that move around 3,000 students a day. That's a lot of kids who rely on buses for transportation and it's why Tim is forced to start preparing now for the worst. He’s upping his budget for the next school year by 50% to make sure he can keep all of his busses on the road.
“I'd have a hard time explaining to a parent who has purchased a school bus pass for their child that the bus isn't going to run today because that parent is still going to work.
Without question, buses use the most fuel here in the Poway Unified School District, but these rising fuel costs are also being felt in a lot of other areas as well.
“We have about 130 or so support vehicles,” Purivs said. “These are our plumbers, electricians our grounds crew. We're running lawnmowers. There's 40 school sites in the district."
Another driving factor toward frustration is that spring is the time when schools tend to take more field trips. That means more miles on the road, but after COVID lockdowns, they are figuring out ways to make them happen. The last thing educators want to do right now is cancel anything students are looking forward to.
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