Massachusetts cities and towns are confronting a ballooning cost as they finalize next year’s budgets: getting kids to school.
Some school bus companies hurt by ever-climbing fuel prices and a labor shortage are passing that pain along to municipalities.
“We've seen about a 35% increase in our transportation costs,” Revere Mayor Brian Arrigo told GBH News. “They've gone from $6.9 million that we spent in 2022, we're projecting now $9.3 million in 2023. And that's actually doing a lot of work, working with our vendors and trying to find ways to efficiently get children to school.”
The city’s contract with Healey Bus is part of those increases. It’s operated the school district’s big school buses for several years. Owner Mark Healey said competition for qualified drivers has been heating up. To attract and retain drivers, he’s paying higher salaries — now $28 an hour — which pushes up his costs.
“We have competition with Amazon, we have competition with the MBTA advertising for CDL [Commercial Driver’s License] bus drivers,” said Healey. “I mean, there's an ad going on on a billboard right on top of one of my yards — and I'm not saying they did that intentionally, but it sure is convenient.”
Healey, who’s been in the business for over 30 years, said his diesel fuel costs practically doubled in the last year — from $3.01 per gallon in June 2021 to a price this week of $5.85 a gallon.
“In my life, I've never seen fuel fluctuate like it has,” Healey said. “I mean, one night about a month and a half, two months ago, it spiked 13 cents a gallon overnight. So I mean, when you sit down and sharpen your pencil to give the best price [on a contract], you really have to ... try to make sure that you're not working for nothing.”
Geoff Beckwith, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said increased busing costs are hitting several of his members. When a “bill” like the cost of getting kids to school goes up for municipalities — even less than Revere’s 35%, say 15 or 20% — Beckwith said it’s rarely the only jump.
“They’re not getting a 15 or 20% increase in state education aid. They’re not getting a 15 or 20% increase in their own local revenues,” he said. “And the budget pressures will come not just in school transportation, but in construction, and in other areas that are experiencing really high inflation because of supply chain disruptions and so on.”
While Arrigo acknowledged the surging costs school bus companies are facing, he said he thinks there’s been too much consolidation in the sector, and that he’s not satisfied that his city is getting the most competitive bids. Healey, whose company was the sole bidder for next year’s contract, feels he gave the city “an accurate price.”
Healey said that not every company feels they can put in a bid that works financially for them on any given job, like the Revere contract, which calls for 24 buses that can seat 71 passengers each.
“There’s certain jobs that I won't bid on because I don't have drivers,” Healey said, “And that really is it, and I think a lot of my competitors feel the same way. And it is a big job.”
The state only requires cities and towns to bus kids through elementary school, but Arrigo argued it wouldn’t be safe to let Revere’s middle and high school students try to get to school on their own in a condensed, high-traffic city. And Beckwith said in Fall River, they’re motivated to bus all their students because it has a big impact in keeping down truancy rates.
Arrigo said Revere will cover part of the increased busing costs with some of the city’s $4 million dollars of revenue from new growth. That growth includes development near the city’s beach, two new hotels and, ironically, one of two new Amazon distribution centers in Revere — the very company that bus company owners say is driving up their wage costs.
Revere’s Chief Financial Officer, Richard Viscay, said the approximately $1 million from new growth revenue that’s going into increased school transportation costs is sorely needed elsewhere.
“We’re the fastest-growing city in the commonwealth,” Viscay said, “so that means a new fire station and [Department of Public Works] facility, a new high school — any kind of new infrastructure to support the increased residents is definitely a place where those dollars could be going other than transportation.”
