Big, yellow and putting schools in the red

Schools are feeling the pinch at the gas pump, too.

Many school districts are getting socked with skyrocketing bills for diesel fuel as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some districts feel the pain firsthand at the pump, buying diesel for their own fleets of buses. Others see the increases passed on to them by companies they hire to run their buses.

This spring, Robbinsdale schools had to revise its $652,000 budget for diesel for the 2007-08 school year to $700,000. The actual cost turned out to be $822,550.

"In 2006-2007, we averaged about $2.27 a gallon," said Robbinsdale transportation director Mike Severson. "This year, we averaged about $3.28, and, right now, today, the tanker we ordered was at $4.12 a gallon."

The district uses 190,000 gallons a year of diesel fuel for its 125-bus fleet, Severson said.

In the Robbinsdale and Osseo districts, both strapped for cash this year, school schedules will change come fall.

The changes are an effort to shave down the number of buses needed, and to save on the associated costs. Robbinsdale will push back the start times at six of its 11 elementary schools next year by an average 20 minutes, Severson said. That will, in turn, allow the district to cut its number of bus routes.

Soaring fuel prices will sting even for big suburban school districts such as Anoka-Hennepin and Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan that are in decent economic health.

In the 2005-2006 school year, Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan budgeted about $790,000 for fuel for its fleet of 200 buses.

"For next year, we have budgeted about $1.5 million, and we're not sure that's going to be enough," said Randy Dudek, transportation coordinator for the district.

Some districts are locked into bus contracts that have insulated them from the biggest increases. In the case of Anoka-Hennepin, which contracts its bus services to two companies, the district started paying when diesel climbed above $2.50 a gallon.

"For the month of May, we averaged $4.07 a gallon for fuel," said Keith Paulson, Anoka-Hennepin schools director of transportation. "For the year, we averaged $3.26 a gallon." That translated into an additional $400,000 hit.

"That's a heck of a bargain," said Scott James, Minneapolis schools director of plant operations and transportation. "We look like geniuses around here right now."