By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City School System soon will add 25 new school buses to its fleet after the city’s Board of Education voted unanimously to finance the new vehicles during a March 14 meeting.

As a result of the vote, the school system likely will receive and begin using the new buses in November, said Chief School Financial Officer Linda Agee.

During the meeting, the School Board first voted to accept a $462,000 bid from Transportation South to purchase five new buses specifically designed to transport special-needs students. In addition to the five new special-needs buses, the School board also voted to purchase 20 regular school buses for $1.84 million, bringing the total purchase to about $2.3 million.

The new buses will have air conditioning and cargo space, as the system is working to eventually fill its fleet with such buses, said ACS Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers.

The 25 new buses will be financed over a 10-year period, and yearly finance payments will be covered entirely by the Fleet Renewal Program funds the school system receives from the Alabama Board of Education each year, Agee said.

ACS was able to secure a 2.07-percent interest rate from Daimler on the purchases.

“There is no local money involved in those yearly financing payments,” Agee said. “It will be totally covered by the Fleet Renewal funds.”

Vickers said the new buses will help the school system to keep its bus fleet-up-to-date.

“This is really going to help us,” Vickers said. “When we are able to purchase 25 new school buses, that’s significant. Keeping our fleet up-to-date is something that is important to us.”