District buys four 77-passenger buses for $340K

 The Walled Lake Consolidated Schools Board of Education agreed to purchase four new school buses at its meeting held on Thursday, May 3.

Back in February, the school board adopted a resolution to participate in the Michigan School Bus Officials (MSBO) Aggregate Bus Purchasing Program, which allows schools districts to purchase quality buses at competitive prices.

The program involves the MSBO, a non-profit organization, issuing invitations to bid to interested bus dealers. The MSBO then organizes the proposals and compiles a dealer price list that allows the schools to electronically compare pricing on various buses from participating dealers which submit bids for consideration.

After analyzing the bids, the district decided to go with Hoekstra Transportation for purchasing the four replacement buses.

“Walled Lake Schools has not purchased buses in four years,” said district Transportation Supervisor Jill Segal. “We want to re-establish a bus replacement schedule. Currently, the district has 119 buses, of which four of them were purchased in 1999. The average mileage of the district’s 79 general education buses is 87,000 miles and the average age is 8.5 years. We are fortunate to have skilled mechanics and diligent drivers that keep our fleet in tip-top shape.”

The 77-passenger conventional buses cost $85,244 each, bringing the total cost of buying four new buses from Hoekstra Transportation to $340,976.