Jackson Schools Approve The Purchase Of A New Bus; On Road After Break

The Jackson County School Board approved the purchase of a new bus with one of the current fleet ailing.

Director of Schools Jason Hardy said the $115,000 bus should be on the road after Christmas break. He said the turn around on a new bus is usually 180 days or more.

“It was unexpected,” Hardy said. “We really weren’t looking to purchase a new bus this year. Of course, we have that on the agenda each year looking ahead. This was one of those things that just kind of popped up. We really wanted to have this meeting and get the bus approved to purchase.”

Hardy said they had a bus go down with a bad engine and needed a replacement quickly.

“That’s kind of the way it is with a little bit of everything right now whether it’s building materials or vehicles or what,” Hardy said. “We were very lucky. There was two on the lot with the company that we usually go with. I think someone had originally wanted to buy those, and it just didn’t work out.”

The board approved a budget amendment to allow for the purchase of the bus Monday night. Hardy said the board will make up the money spent when doing next year’s budget.

“That’s what you do when you have something unexpected happening,” Hardy said. “We’ll figure out that when we come up with the budget process. It won’t be very long. When we do that we’ll just kind of figure out what we need. Of course, we’ll be looking at every area that we have in the school system and see what we need to adjust.”

Hardy said the county has a backup bus, but if something else happened they would be down a bus. He said many counties struggle with hiring drivers, and he is glad his county was in a position where his drivers were not down a bus.

“We are very fortunate to have enough drivers,” Hardy said. “We are always looking for more, but we do have enough at the moment. With having enough, we want to make sure we have a bus where we don’t have to double routes.”