This story is part of an ongoing investigation that looks at the state’s aging school buses and bus driver shortages  — a combination that is having a significant impact on the education of Georgia’s youth.

The Gist

School districts in Georgia, some with aging bus fleets, have been waiting a year or more for delivery of new school buses because of supply chain and labor issues among bus manufacturers. The backlog could have an impact on districts’ access to future student transportation funding from the state.

What’s Happening

In 2022, the Department of Education allotted 1,747 new school buses to public school districts across Georgia at a cost of $153 million. It was the largest state spending on new school buses in over a decade. 

But as of September, only 485 buses had been delivered to school districts, according to the department. 

A shortage of parts and labor issues have slowed production at the three big school bus manufacturing plants in the U.S.: Blue Bird, Thomas Built and IC. 

Blue Bird Corp., based in Fort Valley, and the nation’s second-largest bus manufacturer, has had a backlog of orders as high as 6,000 buses over the past two years, Tim Gordon, vice president of sales and marketing, told State Affairs. Blue Bird’s backlog now stands at about 4,000 buses, he said.

Supply chain issues, including shortages of semiconductor chips and parts needed for braking and air conditioning systems, have hampered bus production.

Workforce challenges have also played a part. The Blue Bird plant needs more welders and  mechanical engineers, Gordon said. And the company is currently negotiating a contract with employees who voted to unionize in May, joining the local United Steelworkers chapter. Leaders and lawyers on both sides are deep in discussions over wages, benefits and working conditions. 

Meanwhile, a crisis involving striking United Auto Workers members was narrowly averted Wednesday, when the union signed onto a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Co., which produces engines that power more than half of Blue Bird buses.

Though the plant has a capacity to manufacture 12,000 buses a year, Blue Bird produced only 6,900 buses in 2022, Gordon said. The plant is on track to produce 8,500 this year.

The upshot for Georgia is that school districts are awaiting delivery of about 600 Blue Bird buses, and at least 660 buses from other manufacturers. Some have been waiting on buses for a year or more, about three times longer than in the past, according to interviews with district transportation directors. 

Why It Matters

Mechanical problems among aging bus fleets, along with a statewide bus driver shortage, have caused many school districts to reduce bus service. Some are running fewer routes and packing more students onto the buses they have, which has led to behavior problems and driver discontent. Many students are arriving late to school.  

According to 2022 data from the Department of Education, 23% of Georgia’s 15,561 daily route buses are at least 15 years old, the age at which buses are generally considered “beyond their useful life,” and present diminishing returns on investments by school districts to repair and maintain them. 

Most school districts also have a number of past-their-prime buses they keep in inventory as “spares,” to be used for field trips and to sub in for regular route buses as needed. An analysis of DOE bus data by State Affairs of the state’s 180 school districts showed that when spare buses are included, 32% of all school buses statewide, or 6,232 of 19,762 buses, are 15 or more years old.

So, districts desperately need the new buses they’ve ordered. While they wait, some are leaning heavily on old inventory.

“The order time for new buses is extreme,” said Stephanie Walker, transportation coordinator for Habersham County Schools, who’s been waiting for several months on 11 buses that won’t be delivered until January.  She said she’s been using spare buses to supplement her 93 regular route buses. About a third of Habersham’s fleet of 123 buses is 15 or more years old.

“We’re having to continue to fix any problem on our existing fleet that arises,” she said. “There are some repairs we might not make to a bus that has some extreme age on it that we’re willing to make now, and some of those are higher-cost items.”  

Districts are also under pressure to spend the use-it-or-lose-it money appropriated by the state in 2022 before it expires in June 2025.

At the annual meeting of the Georgia Association of Pupil Transportation in Cartersville this month, Mike Sanders, director of facilities service and pupil transportation for the education department, told district transportation administrators gathered there that $141 million of the $153 million allocated for student transportation funding in fiscal year 2022 had yet to be spent by districts. Most of the unspent funds — $110 million — is for new buses, and another $32 million is for bus safety and alternative fuel programs. 

Sanders acknowledged the supply chain issues that districts are facing in their bus acquisition efforts, and then reminded them that an additional $1.4 million allocated for new buses in FY 2024 won’t be used until the FY 2022 funding is gone.  

“We were told for three years, don’t ask for any more money” for buses from the state, Sanders said, adding that current bus inventory data shows that most districts need more buses. He said that statewide, “we need a few hundred million more [dollars] to get us where we need to be.”  

What’s Next

Department of Education officials have been meeting with state legislators and staff from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget to discuss Georgia’s student transportation needs, Sanders said. That has included visits to local school systems in Gwinnett, Bartow and Jasper Counties to observe how their bus systems operate. 

Staff in those districts told state officials “about their struggles from a transportation funding perspective,” he said. Meanwhile, other legislators are planning to revive HB 712, introduced last session, which calls for the state to revise its funding formula for student transportation.

Read these related stories:

School districts turn to bus monitors to address chronic driver shortage

Georgia’s aging school buses, bus driver shortage lead to missed classes, meals and safety issues

Georgia’s struggling school bus system: Finding funds and drivers

School transport funding is high on agenda of 3 Democratic lawmakers

Have questions, comments or tips on education in Georgia? Contact Jill Jordan Sieder on X @journalistajill or at [email protected].

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Header photo: Blue Bird currently has orders for 600 electric buses. (Credit: Blue Bird Corp).

Busing Breakdown Logo: (Credit: Brittney Phan)