Board authorizes purchase orders for 11 new school buses; transcript contains garbled figures

The Edgecomb Public Schools board approved motions to obligate purchase orders for 11 new school buses to two separate vendors after Transportation staff summarized the request.

Wayne White presented two vendor packages and said the bus orders would replace older vehicles and are expected to arrive in summer months. He named Whites International and Carolina Thomas as the vendors and said the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction will make payments on the district's behalf for those buses.

Board members approved a motion to obligate funds payable to Carolina Thomas LLC for six new buses, and a separate motion to obligate funds payable to Whites International for five new buses. Meeting audio and the transcript contain numeric transcription errors on several line items; the presenter cited multiple sums in the proceedings but several figures were garbled in the record. Per the transcript, the items discussed included two initial buses for roughly $328,156 and other grouped line items; a second vendor package was described in the transcript as totaling roughly $823,690 and another as $983,22 (garbled). The presenter summarized the total for 11 buses as a single figure that the transcript rendered as "1,8006892." The board approved each vendor motion by voice vote.

Trustees did not record a roll-call vote or named tallies in the public audio; motions were adopted after the standard "all in favor" voice response. The board thanked transportation and maintenance staff for keeping buses running during the winter months and for efforts to coordinate prior used-bus purchases that allowed current ordering choices.

The district will need to confirm and publish the finalized vendor contracts and exact contract amounts in procurement records; the transcripted amounts here are included only as read aloud in the meeting and flagged in clarifying details for verification with official procurement documents.