JAY – School Committee members voted Thursday to buy two 2006 buses and a tractor to replace ones destroyed in a fire in June using insurance money and nearly $41,000 in reserve funds.
A third bus whose roof caught fire was deemed a total loss by the insurance company because the cost to repair it was more than its value. That one will not be replaced, Superintendent Robert Wall said during Thursday’s special meeting.
The cost of the damage to the school’s 90-foot-by-110-foot garage is still unknown, Wall said.
A state fire investigator said last month that a malfunction on a John Deere commercial engine diesel tractor parked inside the bus garage caused the June 28 fire in the Jay school bus garage. Firefighters drove six of nine buses in the garage through closed bay doors after the power short-circuited and prevented the overhead doors from opening.
The No. 5, No. 7 and No. 12 buses were determined by the insurance company to be total losses, Wall said. The School Department has a $500 deductible on the insurance coverage, he said.
The insurance company’s insured, depreciated value for bus No. 5, an 84-passenger 2003 GMC that had 52,074 miles and cost $66,500 new, was estimated to be $57,700, Wall said.
School officials are looking to replace that bus with a 2006, 78-passenger conventional bus for $57,445.
Since that was a leased bus and the bus was destroyed, Jay has to pay off the lease, which is $14,536, Wall said. School officials had made this year’s lease payment before the fire with money raised by voters in April, Wall said.
Bus No. 7, an 84-passenger 2000 GMC that had 113,991 miles and cost $65,258 new, was estimated to have an insured, depreciated value of $31,675, Wall said. School officials also want to replace that one with a 2006, 78-passenger bus for $57,445.
Bus No. 12 was a 1995 GMC that cost $45,980 new had 181,239 miles on it, Wall said. The insured, depreciated value was estimated at $10,500.
The insurance company estimated an allowance of $13,500 for the tractor purchased in 1998 for $24,300, which included a bucket, mower and snowblower.
Voters had approved a long-term reserve fund in 2004 for $61,263 and added $5,000 to the account this year.
After using $40,851 from the reserve to buy the two buses and commercial tractor, it would leave $25,412 in the account.
Wall said he has a meeting with the state next week to discuss the bus situation and to see if there is any subsidy available for the buses. He said there could be a possibility of $20,680 in a subsidy returned to the town in fiscal 2007.
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