Waterford district enters contract for 11 school buses

The Waterford School District Board of Education at its Thursday, May 3 meeting approved a three-year lease agreement with Capital City Transportation for the use of 11 school buses.

The district will dole out $130,163 annually under the contract with Capital City in order to use the buses, which will each seat 71 passengers.

Capital City was the lowest bidder to submit a quote to the school district, followed by Holland Bus Company at $133,978, and Hoekstra Transportation at $146,828.

Out of the 11 buses, the district states that five of them will replace current buses with expiring leases and that six buses will provide for fleet expansion to accommodate a change to a three-tier bus routing system in the school district.

In the annual bus inspections conducted by the state of Michigan in 2011, the district had 75 of its 78 school buses pass State Police inspections, with only three of them being red-flagged.

Of the trio of buses red-tagged, one was removed from service permanently.

The remaining two red-tagged buses had mechanical problems — one due to a parking brake failure, and the second due to an inversion valve.

Service Mechanical Coordinator/Manager Mike Sauk said that those buses were repaired before being placed back into service to transport students and staff, as required by state law.

Sauk also previously said that leasing the vehicles has helped to curtail costs and allows the district to take receipt of newer buses more frequently than purchasing would allow.