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Board committee approves up to $200,000 for electric bus charger installation at city maintenance facility
Summary
The finance committee recommended the board appropriate up to $200,000 from the school building maintenance fund to install electric bus charging infrastructure at the city-owned Common Operations Maintenance Facility; the district expects a federal bus grant to cover bus purchases but not the full cost of site infrastructure.
The Concord School District Finance Committee on May 19 recommended the Board of Education raise and appropriate up to $200,000 from the school building maintenance fund to pay for electric bus charging infrastructure at the city-owned Common Operations Maintenance Facility.
The nut graf: District staff said the buses themselves are being purchased with a federal grant but the site infrastructure — conduit, trenching, transformer work and internet/data runs — likely will require local funding. The committee approved forwarding the appropriation and directed administration to coordinate lease changes with the city.
Jack Dunn, school district finance staff, described the work as trenching roughly 400+ feet from the existing transformer to the bus parking area, installing 5-inch PVC conduit, internet cabling and vaults for electrical equipment. He said the infrastructure quote could be “up to $200,000” and noted he had received one estimate described in the meeting as “1.95” while staff continued to refine bids.
On the bus purchase, administration said the district received a federal grant for the vehicles (quoted in the meeting as $1,035,000) and the vendor’s invoice for the buses was about $1,000,032; administrators said the federal funds will flow through and the district will forward payment to the vendor once the grant funds arrive. The district has already placed conditional purchase orders with vendors pending grant disbursement.
Equipment: The district plans to install two 60-kilowatt chargers; a vendor quote dated Dec. 18 listed each unit at $21,009.10, for a two-unit total of about $43,008.20. Dunn said insurance proceeds from a damaged bus (roughly $60,000–$62,000) are proposed to be used to purchase the chargers. The district will separately meter the chargers and require lease language to allocate electric-metering costs.
Committee members asked about alternatives to the trench route and whether swapping or rearranging parking with the city could shorten excavation distance and lower costs. Dunn and a city staff contact, Jay Burgess, said they had reviewed options but flagged operational and safety constraints: the shared facility has high bays not suitable for buses, active winter operations and vehicle traffic and risk factors that made splitting the fleet or relocating the transformer less advantageous than the proposed plan.
The committee approved a motion recommending the board appropriate up to $200,000 from the school building maintenance fund for the charger infrastructure and directed administration to work with the city on any lease modifications; the motion passed on a voice vote with no recorded opposition.
Ending: Administration said vendor production is scheduled to start in October and the district could see delivered buses in December; staff will return with final contractor quotes and a formal appropriation request at the board meeting recommended for June.
