CCSD donation of old buses to other Nevada districts stirs debate among trustees

Superintendent Robert Fecht estimated he would have needed to spend $230,000 on two new special education school buses for his Pershing County students.

Instead, Fecht will soon receive two 14-year-old special education buses for free. That’s a major savings for the small district 90 miles northeast of Reno, which would have struggled to find almost a quarter-million dollars to purchase such specially equipped vehicles.

The donated buses are coming from the Clark County School District, whose policies mandate that buses be retired after 14 years. For the last 15 years or so, the district has given many of its old buses away to serve students in other parts of the state.

The donations aren’t solely a gesture of goodwill on the district’s part but have become bargaining chips of sorts. Some trustees argue the district is losing money by not selling all the buses at auction. Others believe the donations benefit Clark County students by helping to curry favor with other districts regarding state legislative efforts on education issues.

“It’s helpful when important times come up,” Trustee Erin Cranor said.

At a recent School Board meeting, Trustees Kevin Child and Chris Garvey questioned the practice.

“It’s not our money to give away,” Child said. “I’m not here to give the Clark County taxpayers’ money away.”

This year, 69 of approximately 160 decommissioned buses will be given to 11 other districts in the state — a total donation valued upward of $276,000.

Each of the buses is worth between $2,700 and $5,400, according to the Official School Bus Blue Book, a guide created by Bus Solutions.

Based on an average value of about $4,000 per bus, the Clark County School District donations add up to $276,000 in transportation aid to other districts.

Garvey and Child argued that money could be used to hire specialists or increase the district’s reserve funds.

“I’m not opposed to helping other districts, but I also know a lot of the districts we’re talking about have fund balances that are sometimes in the double digits,” Garvey said. “We’re struggling just to recoup back up to 2 percent in our fund balance.”

This year, about 85 other buses will be sent to auction, said Clark County Director of Transportation Shannon Evans, who valued those buses at $260,000, or about $3,000 each. Buses that don’t sell at auction will be scrapped for metal, she said.

“Typically the buses we donate are in a little better condition than the ones that go to auction,” Evans said. “We try to pick through the better equipment and offer it to those counties.”

‘A GODSEND’

School officials across the state acknowledged the charity of Clark County has been financially beneficial, but they stopped short of saying it made them beholden to Clark County’s education agendas.

“There’s never been a sense of expectation either way,” Fecht said. “It’s not a question of what we owe each other. It’s just part of us being good team members.”

Fecht knows there may be a time when his voice, as one of 17 superintendents in the state, may be necessary to help Clark County officials lobby the state on education matters.

“I’m a wing of their high school when you think of numbers, but I am one of the 17 school districts,” he said of his 620-student district. “I’d like to think my voice at times is one that Clark may need.”

Adam Young, superintendent of the White Pine County School District, agreed. White Pine is receiving six buses, and Young said he’ll be able to retire his district’s older vehicles, some of which date to 1991.

“For all of us in the state, we recognize the benevolence of Clark County in helping us with things that we’re just too small to do,” he said. “I think that there’s a lot of goodwill that happens from Clark to the rest of the state and from the rest of the state to Clark.”

Nye County will receive 20 of the 69 buses, or a donation of an estimated $80,000. That’s a significant budgetary boost, given that new buses can cost between $115,000 and $150,000, according to education officials statewide.

“It’s a godsend. It really has been for this district,” said Cameron McCrea, district transportation director for Nye County.

McCrea expects to get another 10 years or so of service from the buses, which he said always arrive in good condition.

“They’ve been cared for well in Clark. They may be a little ragged at the end of their life, but even if they were to charge us a nominal fee for them, it’d be worth it,” McCrea said.

MONEY MATTERS

For Cranor, the donation program has already produced results.

She pointed to a 2014 resolution passed by all 17 districts in the state supporting the creation of a weighted student funding formula. The formula is largely seen as mostly benefiting Clark County — which has the largest and most diverse student population — as opposed to the smaller districts.

“The bus donations are not the only way we work on goodwill with our counties,” she said.

Not all the board members agreed with Cranor.

“I’m here to watch what we spend,” Child said.

Child and Garvey pointed to district programs that could benefit from the infusion of money selling a bus could provide, such as hiring more support staff for students who don’t speak English.

“Those donated buses basically represented three of those people,” Garvey said, referring to those support staff specialists.

Garvey also questioned whether the bus donations make a difference.

“I’ve never once had a trustee from another district thank me for a bus donation,” she said. “Hopefully those relationships are built on trust and integrity and values and not hinging solely on a bus — a used one, at that.”

Contact Meghin Delaney at 702-383-0281 or mdelaney@reviewjournal.com. Follow @MeghinDelaney on Twitter.