District reviews EV‑charging rollout after data shows operating cost exceed driver fees

District staff presented a multi-year analysis of the Los Altos School District electric vehicle charging program and told the board the district currently subsidizes charging and is exploring rate and access changes to reduce net cost. The presentation, led by Mr. Wallace and prepared by PowerFlex (now owned by EDF Renewables), summarized grant-funded installation at nine schools and reported roughly 45,000 plug‑ins over the most recent 12‑month period. Staff said the district delivered about 887,000 kilowatt‑hours at an average district cost of “about 41¢ per kilowatt hour,” and that delivering that energy cost the district roughly $365,000 over the period analyzed. Driver fees collected were roughly $115,000; staff said an additional roughly $77,000 in revenue would have been collected if staff had been charged rather than given free charging. The presentation listed an average delivered session of about 20 kWh, 2,141 unique drivers and about 122 district employees among those users. Staff outlined technical and contractual complications: fast chargers were taken offline because the vendor could not reliably collect revenue from them; some charging units need firmware updates and replacement; and a surcharge from the vendor’s payment processing and a 10 percent estimated maintenance replacement reserve increase operating costs. Board members questioned whether the district should continue offering free staff charging or subsidize public charging at all. One trustee said district energy costs are too high and suggested the district could instead offer staff a stipend; another said restricting chargers to staff or raising public fees should be explored. A trustee suggested that if public utilization dropped, the district’s electricity costs would fall, reducing its subsidy burden. Staff said there are about 187 individual charging outlets across the district and a rough replacement cost of $1,200 per unit; they proposed budgeting to replace about 20 stations per year and to set rates that recover a greater share of electricity and maintenance costs. Staff also said the original grant conditions required a minimum number of open hours and that free staff charging helped meet those usage objectives early in the program. Next steps: staff said they will work with the vendor to model elasticity of demand at multiple price points, present proposed driver rates to the board and consider operational changes such as reserving stations for staff, adjusting time‑of‑use pricing and ensuring chargers have current firmware and a replacement schedule.