State Sen. Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, has signed onto a letter with 14 other state Senate Republicans calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to either lift the electric school bus mandate for public schools or fully fund the conversion process, his office announced Thursday.

Established in New York’s 2022-23 fiscal year budget in April 2022, the Electric School Bus Roadmap is the state’s goal to transition all school buses in the state to zero-emission operation by 2035. This mandate is the first of its kind in the country, one Hochul said was spurred by climate change.

“New York state is empowering school districts to embrace zero-emission school buses which will provide our leaders of tomorrow with healthy and clean transportation today,” Hochul said in a statement announcing funding for electric buses last month. “Ensuring electric school buses are at the forefront of student transport is a critical health investment and demonstrates the benefits of clean energy while reducing harmful emissions to improve air quality and protect our precious environment.”

The first milestone on the Electric School Bus Roadmap will occur on July 1, 2027, when all school buses purchased in the state must be zero-emission. With the deadline looming, school administrators and politicians across the state have started to voice concerns about fleet conversion.

The letter signed by Stec, which was penned by state Sen. George Borello (R-Sunset Bay), said that the “extremely high cost of electric buses, the short transition timeline and the logistical challenges are all problems … (that) have not been adequately addressed.”

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Costs

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In a statement, Stec focused mainly on the costs of school bus fleet conversion.

“At a time when rural, upstate schools could use more funding to focus on educational services, this expensive mandate would raise taxes and divert resources away from students,” Stec said in a statement. “Green initiatives are laudable, but the electric bus mandate runs counter to the realities our schools face. Instead of requirements that have a detrimental impact on both our schools and taxpayers, the governor should either lift this mandate or allocate enough funding in next year’s budget to cover the $20 billion it’s expected to cost to convert the 45,000 school buses in operation statewide.”

According to the World Resources Institute, an institute that conducts policy research about global environmental issues, New York has the second-largest school bus fleet in the United States. Diesel school buses typically cost approximately $100,000 to $200,000 each, while electric school buses of comparable size typically cost approximately $300,000 to $400,000. Chargers, which are necessary to keep the buses running, are another added expense. A top-of-the-line charger can cost around $40,000.

Local districts have debated the costs of conversion, too. At a September meeting, the Lake Placid Central School District Board of Education discussed board member Colleen Locke’s conversation with staffers from Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-Schuylerville) office about the mandate. During the board’s discussion, board member Ryan St. Louis expressed concern that the Electric School Bus Roadmap was going to create “more burden on the school district and more burden on the taxpayers to comply with some law or mandate.”

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy think tank operated through SUNY, reported last November that New York’s school-financing structure stands as a potential roadblock to electrification, as school districts are not allowed to increase their tax levy by more than 2% or the value of inflation “after adjusting for district-specific circumstances” — unless a school district’s budget is approved by a supermajority of voters.

The state gives districts Transportation Aid, which partially reimburses bus-related contracts, purchases and operations. Bus fleet electrification can fall under these expenses. However, according to the report, even districts that receive relatively high amounts of Transportation Aid will see “significant local expense” when electrifying their fleets.

Borello’s letter echoed this sentiment.

“Full conversion by 2035 will cost approximately $20 billion,” the letter reads. “Without question, the $100 million in grants the state just made available for electric school bus purchases won’t be nearly enough. That amount is enough to fund about 250 buses statewide.

“With over 800 school districts statewide, that isn’t even one bus per district. Even the additional $400 million to be allocated in future rounds won’t make a dent in the cost of conversion,” the letter continues.

In the case of LPCSD, a state audit revealed recently that the district had fallen behind on applying for Transportation Aid in recent years, spending more on its school bus fleet than it needed to and making transportation funding even more dire.

“By not submitting the proper applications for 11 buses, the District’s taxpayers will not benefit from the $18,842 in aid the District would have received upon approval with (the New York state Education Department),” the audit report read. “In addition, if officials do not properly file the aid applications, taxpayers will also not benefit from the remaining $45,034 officials can claim.”

Following the audit, the district cleared its backlog of applications, which were accepted by the SED.

Despite the higher overhead cost of electric buses, they often cost less to operate than diesel buses, which means short-term financial pressure and long-term savings for districts.

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Terrain

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Borello’s letter also raised concerns about the range of electric buses’ batteries — especially in cold temperatures — and the strain of electric buses’ heaver weights on bridges around the state.

Electric buses have been tested in cold, snowy and mountainous terrains similar to the North Country, though none have made their way to the North Country so far.

The Blue Bird Corporation — an American school bus manufacturer — conducted a case study at West Grand School District in Kremmling, Colorado, to measure the reliability and endurance of a 2020 Blue Bird Type-D All-American Electric Bus in low temperatures and on steep, unstable terrains. During the yearlong case study, the temperatures in November and December “averaged between -33 and -18 Fahrenheit” and “only rose above freezing five afternoons.” It was tested on elevation gains of up to 1,500 feet and routes up to 78 miles long. The bus driver did need to maintain a 25% base charge on the bus for the winter months to compensate for the extra energy used by heating systems. Additionally, any bus garages that house an electric bus needed to have heating for winter months to protect the batteries from freezing temperatures.

The Chicago Transit Authority introduced an electric bus to its fleet with more mixed results than West Grand School District’s. Cold winter weather became an issue for the CTA, the Associated Press reported in March. When it’s cold outside the lithium-ion batteries that run the buses are less efficient and the buses’ mileage also drops. This is because more power is being diverted to heating the interior of the bus, which runs all day and also continually opens its doors to let passengers on and off. The bus’s range was about 100 miles at a full charge — a figure that Borello cited as incongruous with the amount of travel rural districts often face outside of normal routes.

On average routes, school buses do not operate continuously from the morning to the evening, which makes them more likely candidates for electrification than buses operated by municipalities. They can be charged overnight and even in between morning and afternoon routes. However, other uses for school buses — such as transportation for athletic events or field trips — do involve continuous operation.

There has not been extensive research concerning the effects of the increased weight of electric buses on rural infrastructure.

Borello did not rule out the possibility of Republicans working toward school bus fleet electrification. Instead, it asked that the state government revisit the financing structure of the mandate, calling its current structure an “unsustainable financial burden.”