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Gatesville ISD to buy two new buses with state grant; board approves routine MOUs and policy renewals
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Summary
Trustees accepted a $106,000 Texas Emissions Reduction Plan grant and approved using local funds to buy two 72-passenger buses, reviewed 3-point harness reporting showing 14 buses with harnesses and 23 without, and approved several routine items including the substance-abuse policy, library purchases and MOUs for counseling and newspaper office space.
The Gatesville ISD board approved a recommendation to purchase two new 72-passenger school buses using a $106,000 Texas Emissions Reduction Plan school-bus replacement grant combined with local funds.
District staff (speaker 10) said the grant award covers $106,000 and estimated the district share at about $95,000, which fits the board’s existing $100,000 bus budget. The grant requires the replaced buses be identified by VIN and physically destroyed before reimbursement; staff said two older buses in the fleet will be retired and disposed of according to grant rules.
Speaker 10 also presented a required report on 3-point seat-belt compliance: the district has 14 buses with 3-point harnesses and 23 buses without; of those 23, 18 have no seat belts and five have sub-lap belts. Staff said retrofit quotes were hard to obtain because vendors cited liability concerns and many district buses are too old to accept retrofits. Estimated retrofit costs provided to the district included about $171,000 to retrofit five buses vendors would work on, or roughly $70,000 per bus for the other buses — a retrofit total in the ballpark of $1.2–1.4 million if the district were required to fully retrofit the fleet.
The board also reviewed other informational and action items. Staff announced the summer feeding program will run Monday, June 1 through Thursday, July 30, will use the elementary campus and will serve any child 18 and under; the district will provide breakfast and lunch and serve community camps and Boys & Girls Club events. In finance updates, staff summarized recent Medicaid "settle up" history and said the district expects to accept a $15,580 payment from a prior year after disputes yielded little or no recovery in past cycles.
On routine business, trustees adopted the district’s substance-abuse policy (SAP) for extracurriculars with only date updates; the policy is used to support student participation in extracurricular activities and to conduct random testing in a pool that historically numbers roughly 700 students. The board approved library purchases after the statutorily required public posting period, authorized a long-standing MOU with a counseling partner (referenced in packet as Freedom Brains/Freedom Reins) that provides up to $50 per session for services not covered by insurance (monthly billing capped at $1,200), and approved a five-year MOU allowing Gatesville Newspapers Inc. (d/b/a Gatesville Messenger) to use primary office space at no charge.
The board approved the bus purchase recommendation, the policy renewal and the listed MOUs by voice vote.
Speaker 10: "The grant is $106,000, that means the district's share of the cost would be about 95,000," as staff summarized the award and local match.
