Buckingham school board goes over buses, air conditioning issues

Published 7:51 am Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Prince Edward School Board Buckingham Cumberland
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After purchasing some new buses already this year, Buckingham County Public Schools has no money right now to either buy more with air conditioning or retrofit older ones. However, the district will continue to replace or upgrade buses each year, with the money set aside for that in the budget. That was the takeaway from the Wednesday, July 9 school board meeting, as members discussed concerns about student transportation. 

Recently on social media, some Buckingham community members had questioned why all of the district’s buses didn’t have air conditioning. Currently, nine of the school buses have it and 27 do not. After county supervisors made some cuts of their own and gave the district more funding, another two will be retrofitted with air conditioning and should be ready for service at some point later this year. Those were the numbers Ronnie Palmore shared with the school board on Wednesday. Palmore works as Director of Transportation in the school district. 

The reason more buses haven’t been fixed with air conditioning, Palmore explained, is simply the district doesn’t have the money. Even the allotment given each year by county supervisors doesn’t buy as much as it previously did. Every year in the budget, Buckingham County supervisors approve a $270,000 line item for new buses. 

“With the price of the buses now, we’re just getting two a year,” Palmore said. “The price used to be $90,000 (for a new bus). Now it’s $130,000.” 

Part of that rising cost, Palmore explained, is due to new federal emissions laws that took effect last year, ordered by the Biden administration. 

“All the different bus manufacturers went up $8,000 for the emissions change,” Palmore said. “They’re trying to get that exhaust down so low in these buses, (but) $8,000 is a tremendous hit per bus.” 

A retrofitting project for Buckingham

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As a result, the district has kept buses in use longer than before. That means the majority of the current fleet are older and don’t automatically come with air conditioning. 

“It used to be, when everything was great, the life expectancy of a school bus was 10 years,” Palmore said. “They’ve stretched that out to 15 years. (This year) we’re gonna have some right at 15 years old.” 

And those will be the first in line to be replaced with the funding from next year’s budget, Palmore said, but it’s not a case where the district has money to immediately replace them today. 

So if you can’t buy a new bus right now, how do you deal with the air conditioning issue? The answer is with retrofitting. Before signing off on this year’s budget at the end of April, Buckingham supervisors set aside an extra $54,000 for the school district, to cover the cost of a retrofit “test” project. The goal here is to update some of those older buses, outfitting them with a type of air conditioning system. That $54,000 will go to outfit four, county officials were told in their April budget meeting. 

Supervisors said they would try to set aside some extra funding in next year’s budget as well, to help the district retrofit more of the older vehicles until they can afford to get new ones. 

At Wednesday’s school board meeting, Palmore said he’s tried to choose the buses with the longest routes to get retrofitted first. 

“That’s a decision that I try to make and use my best judgement,” he said. 

Another cost added 

School board members also pointed out that it’s not just the up front purchase cost that comes with an air conditioning system. You have to pay to replace the refrigerant and also to cover the cost of the compressor if it fails. Refilling the refrigerant alone can run anywhere from $600 to $2,200 per bus. 

Palmore said one at least temporary option for next year could be for the district to only buy one new bus and spend the rest of that line item in the budget on retrofitting more of the others with air conditioning. 

Buckingham School Board Vice Chair Joe Snoddy asked if there had been any heat related incidents reported on any buses over the last year. There had not been, he was told by staff. He asked if there had been any medical issues that were heat related and again was told there were none involving buses. 

“We all rode the school buses without AC,” Snoddy said. “The assumption is that we’re not taking care of the staff or the kids. We all had bus drivers that drove us with no AC. I rode the bus an hour and a half with no AC (growing up).”

He also pointed out that the extreme temperatures have taken place, as they normally do, in June and July, when the majority of students are on summer vacation. He asked how many buses run for summer school and was told 14. 

Snoddy said would rather the school district continue to buy new buses when possible, because even though that’s slower, it addresses both the concern over the growing age of some buses and air conditioning. 

Nothing was decided at Wednesday’s meeting, only that it would be something the school board would continue to discuss.

BRIAN CARLTON is the regional editor for the Farmville Herald and its sister papers. He can be reached at brian.carlton@farmvilleherald.com.