State will buy more than 600 school buses - but lawmakers must maintain that commitment.

After years of neglect, state lawmakers dedicated
some serious money toward buying school buses.
The addition of 625 new buses next school year
will allow the state to replace older buses that are prone
to breaking down.

Lawmakers allocated $36.7 million to purchase new
school buses. An additional $26.7 million will be spent
on fuel and spare parts.

The plan was long overdue. It will mark the largest
purchase of buses in this state in 11 years. In 1995, lawmakers bought 2,000 school buses — the largest-ever
school-bus purchase in the history of the nation.

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That was a bold effort on the part of lawmakers, but
now those 2,000 buses are 11 years old. Many, if not
most, need to be replaced. That’s why a large bus purchase was needed this year.

But lawmakers should commit to buying a significant
number of new school buses every year. Lawmakers
tend to buy a couple of hundred buses one year but few
or none the next. The result is that old buses don’t get
replaced when they should. About 460 buses need to
be purchased annually in order to replace buses after
12 years of service.

That’s a reasonable length of service. Private contractors often replace school buses every eight years.

About half of the state’s 5,700 school buses need to
be replaced. About 2,800 buses are more than 15
years old or have been driven 250,000 miles. Not unexpectedly, breakdowns are more frequent than ever.
During South Carolina’s school year, an average of 22
buses fail on the way to school every day. Sometimes
hundreds of kids are late for school or stranded by the
roadside for hours. Clearly that’s not a safe situation,
and it deprives children of valuable class time.

In Greenville, the average mileage on buses is more
than 212,000. About 130 of the district’s 300 buses
would need to be junked immediately if the state followed a reasonable replacement standard. Greenville
school buses broke down or failed to start 950 times
last year.

Lawmakers took a pass this year on a bill sponsored
by state Rep. Ronny Townsend, R-Anderson, that
would have put buses on a 12-year replacement cycle.
A hope is that other legislators would take up that effort for the retiring Townsend.

New school buses are reliable and offer more safety
features. The purchase of 625 buses puts the state on
the right track. But lawmakers need to maintain that
commitment by buying a few hundred buses every
year, keeping the state’s bus fleet safe, reliable and up
to date.