New York State Climate and Environment

‘In a Bind’: New Yorkers Rejecting Transition to Electric School Buses, Despite Mandate

New York’s push for electric school buses by 2027 has districts across the state struggling with voter approval and funding.

Bianca Fortis · December 18, 2024

A row of electric Lion school buses charge at a row of charging stations.

Starting in 2027, all new school bus purchases in New York state must be electric. | Photo: CA Energy / Flickr

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With its affluent waterfront along Chautauqua Lake, the Bemus Point Central School District rarely qualifies for federal financial assistance. So when an opportunity arose to apply for a rebate from the Environmental Protection Agency to help finance new electric school buses, district administrators jumped at the chance. In May, the EPA awarded Bemus Point $400,000 for two electric buses.

Two years ago, New York passed a law mandating that all new school bus purchases must be electric starting in 2027. The district reasoned that the rebate could provide a head start, while easing the financial burden on local taxpayers.

“We never get this,” said District Superintendent Joseph Reyda. “This was a rare, rare occurrence.”

Including bus chargers and upgrades to the bus garage, the full project would cost about a million dollars. The rebate and additional state incentives meant the district would be responsible for less than a quarter of that. To cover the local share, the school board asked the community to approve a proposition to take out a temporary loan for $236,000.

The district campaigned hard this summer, publishing several articles in the local newspaper, posting regularly on social media, holding three public meetings, and even bringing in an electric school bus for the community to tour.

On September 5, the community voted — and rejected the proposition by just 11 votes, effectively turning down about $800,000 in financial incentives, as well as the chance to get ahead of the state mandate.

Of the state’s 30 districts that tried to pass propositions this year specifically to purchase an electric bus, 10 had their measures rejected by voters, according to data compiled by the New York State School Boards Association.

Districts can also try to include the buses in their annual budgets. About 80 percent of those attempts have been successful, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the agency charged with assisting districts with the transition.

Many district leaders, especially those in rural areas, say their communities believe the state is rushing the transition to electric. They say schools have limited resources to buy the buses — which are about double the cost of a diesel bus — and the electric infrastructure necessary to operate the vehicles doesn’t yet exist.

“The transition as currently proposed is not achievable,” three state educational associations declared in a joint letter sent to policymakers last year.

“In order to comply, districts may be forced to reduce educational opportunities for students, increase taxes, and spend exorbitant sums,” wrote the New York State School Boards Association, the Council of Superintendents and the Association of School Business Officials.

In Bemus Point, once all of the financial incentives, rebates and state aid kicked in, Reyda said the project would not have resulted in a local tax increase. But that didn’t seem to matter.

“They felt that by voting no, they were sending a message to the state that the district was not going to purchase these things because we do not agree with the political rationale behind that,” he said.

Over half of the state’s 731 school districts are developing fleet electrification plans, NYSERDA said. But when voters reject the proposals, school district leaders are at a loss.

“What if my community keeps saying no?” Reyda said. “I don’t have a lot of options with this, because the state says you have to buy them, and if my community says, ‘Well, we’re not going to buy them,’ I’m in a bind.”

After the failed proposition, Bemus Point received a 45-day extension from the EPA to secure local funding. The district would like to put the proposition forward to another vote, Reyda said, but the earliest it can do so is March 18 — which means it will need another extension.

“Our concern is that they’re going to say, ‘Your community already voted no — we’re not going to waste our time on you again,’” Reyda said. “There may be another community out there in the nation that would be willing to take this money.”

“I don’t have a lot of options with this, because the state says you have to buy them, and if my community says, ‘Well, we’re not going to buy them,’ I’m in a bind.”

—Bemus Point Central School District Superintendent Joseph Reyda

Electric buses present a range of benefits. A recent Harvard University study found that switching to electric buses reduces greenhouse gas emissions, adult mortality, and childhood asthma, particularly in densely populated areas. They’re also much quieter than diesel buses. A University of Michigan study found that moving away from diesel to “clean” options, including electric or natural gas, is linked to a modest increase in student attendance.

Across the country, nearly 5,000 electric school buses currently serve more than 250,000 students, according to recent data from the World Resources Institute. More than 7,000 purchases are planned or in progress.

New York is one of seven states that have passed laws requiring school districts to make the transition. New York’s deadline is the earliest, and if districts can meet it, the state may be the first in the nation to complete the transition.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has been supportive, advocating for the Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act, which included $500 million for the transition through the New York School Bus Incentive Program.

The Empire Center, a nonpartisan think tank based in Albany, estimates that New York’s mandate will cost at least $8.9 billion for the buses alone.

Then there are infrastructure challenges. Four in ten school districts report their electricity systems need updates in order to charge the buses, according to an October report from the state education department.

School districts may apply for a two-year extension to meet the 2027 deadline, according to NYSERDA. By 2035, all of the state’s roughly 45,000 diesel school buses must be zero-emission. The agency did not answer a question about whether there is a penalty for districts that do not meet the deadlines.

Bob Vecchio, the executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association, isn’t opposed to an eventual transition, but said the state should delay both deadlines. He pointed to yet another obstacle: the state’s cap on property tax levies, which limits the revenue districts can raise locally to cover expenses like electric buses.

“We are calling on the legislature to literally pump the brakes on the electric bus mandate,” he said, until the state addresses districts’ infrastructure and financial concerns — “and until the question gets answered about, ‘If you go out for capital improvement to meet the mandate, and it’s rejected by your voters — then what?’”

In a recent state-commissioned report assessing the state’s primary school funding formula, the Rockefeller Institute of Government noted the “enormous costs” to school districts of the electric bus mandate and recommended that the state “fully underwrite the costs.”

Administrators in the Newfield Central School District, just outside Ithaca, believed applying for federal funding for the school buses was a responsible financial choice. They need 12 to 14 buses daily for the district’s 636 students, according to District Superintendent Eric Hartz.

The district received a $1.2 million grant from the EPA to purchase three buses. The remote district doesn’t have good internet service, so initially there was some trouble getting the bus chargers synced up to WiFi, but they’ve been running without incident since October 1.

“I’ve been on them a couple times — I think they’re awesome,” Hartz said.

In May, the district proposed buying another bus, stipulating that it would only purchase an electric bus if rebates made its cost equal to or less than a diesel bus. The proposition was rejected by 18 votes.

Hartz said that the number of districts rejecting these propositions should be a signal to state officials that the deadline to transition is far sooner than communities are ready for.

“You can put all the mandates in the world out there,” Hartz said.

“But if your community votes it down, how are you making it a mandate?”