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Hurricane Katrina

Pinellas schools facing shortage of bus fuel

With deliveries slowed by Katrina, the district is considering ways to keep the buses running as scheduled.

By DONNA WINCHESTER and JEFF SOLOCHEK
Published September 2, 2005

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Pinellas schools may have to limit bus service next week because of a diesel fuel shortage caused by Hurricane Katrina, officials said Thursday.

The district is making contingency plans for transporting more than 42,000 children after waiting several days for a fuel delivery that has not come.

Late Thursday, the district had 6,556 gallons of diesel fuel on hand, enough to get children back and forth to school today. But it takes about 14,000 gallons to operate the system with an adequate cushion, superintendent Clayton Wilcox said.

"Absent having a fuel delivery, we're going to have to look at alternatives as early as Tuesday," Wilcox said. "We're hopeful that if we partner with some of our friends and colleagues at other community agencies, we will have enough fuel on hand. But if we don't, over the course of this weekend, we will have to make a call."

The district is considering several options, including having school buses fill up at gas stations and asking parents of high school students to drive their children to school, Wilcox said.

Closing schools is not an option, he said, because parents depend on the school system to care for their children while they are at work.

The district was paying $2.16 per gallon for fuel last week. This week, the price was up to $2.21. But the additional cost is not the primary concern, said district spokesman Sterling Ivey.

"We can afford to buy the gas. We just don't have the gas to purchase," he said.

The district depends on fuel deliveries every few days from an Indiana company that fills the tanks at six bus compounds throughout the county. The last delivery, due three days ago, never arrived.

"We're at the mercy of the distributors," Ivey said. "They could show up at 8 o'clock at night. They haven't been very consistent with the delivery times."

Steve DeLuca, president of Delco Oil in DeLand, chided school districts that rely on out-of-state fuel brokers for their gas and find themselves short. Already the primary supplier for Hernando, Pasco and several other counties, Delco has fielded calls from Orange, Volusia and Seminole, among other school districts.

"It's their own fault," DeLuca said. "We went through this last hurricane (season). Last year, it was our civic duty (to help). This year, it questions common sense."

Pinellas has the capacity for 128,000 gallons of fuel, enough to run its more than 700 buses for three to four weeks. As of Thursday, all of the compounds were out of fuel except for the Walter Pownall Service Center and the Lealman compound, both in mid Pinellas. Wilcox estimated individual buses would have as much as half a tank when they completed their runs Thursday.

"Coupled with the 6,500 gallons of fuel we have on hand, we'll be able to continue service as scheduled on Friday," he said.

But he said the fuel shortage puts the district at a "critical juncture."

"I think it's very reasonable for folks to believe we're in a very extreme situation," he said.

Wilcox said parents should stay tuned to local media for updates and listen for messages the district will send via telephone over the three-day Labor Day weekend.

Parents are offering suggestions for ways the district could deal with the fuel crisis. One proposed a four-day school week.

That would not be feasible, Ivey said, because the district is "the custodian of people's children."

The district would first ask parents of high school students to find alternate ways to get their children to school, Ivey said. He said every effort will be made to ensure transportation for special education, elementary and middle school children.

District spokesman Ron Stone, who has worked for Pinellas schools since 1978, said he has seen gas shortages but never anything like what the district is facing now.

"It's never been to the point where we were thinking of cutting services," he said.

Pinellas is not the only Florida school district feeling the effects of fuel shortages. In a news conference Thursday, Education Commissioner John Winn gave a lengthy list of others facing shortages, including Orange County, where officials said parents might not see buses arriving at their usual stops next week to take their children to school.

Manatee County, which has 8,000 gallons in its tanks and a delivery scheduled, has canceled until further notice all bus rides for field trips that are not set by contract, spokeswoman Margi Nanney said.

And in Pasco County, transportation director Mike Park figured the district has an eight- to 10-day supply, and said Delco has made deliveries around the clock.

But it's an open question how long that can last.

"Our supplier said he never knows when he can get fuel," Park said. "It may well be that we run out. But that hasn't happened yet."

Unlike other Florida counties, Hillsborough says it has enough fuel to bus students for the foreseeable future. The school district has a dozen stations that can hold about 315,000 gallons of diesel and regular gas.

There are no shortages at this time, and the district's suppliers have agreed to make delivery a top priority, said spokesman Steve Hegarty.

If Hillsborough school officials have a concern, Hegarty said, it's about rising prices. Last year, the School Board spent $5.8-million on fuel for buses, and this year it budgeted $9-million.

Administrators now say that may be $3.2-million shy of the real cost. They are looking for ways to cover it.

"We are going to look at everything that is noninstructional," Hegarty said.

Times staff writer Joni James contributed to this report.

[Last modified September 2, 2005, 02:15:35]