Advertisement. Advertise with us

Letter from Anthony Scalici

To Oberacker: Please Oppose Bus Mandate

I am a long-time member of the Cooperstown Central School Board of Education but writing this letter as an individual. Please reconsider the mandate for electric school buses placed on public schools. It imposes an impossible burden on annual operating finance, transportation management and long-term debt to taxpayers. It is detrimental to classroom education in the threat it poses of losses to staffing and programs from the inordinate increase to yearly bus and related costs. Spending constraints for rural schools are already harming staff and program viability from existing state regulations and the 2 percent tax-cap.

It can be concluded that this mandate was drawn with little or no input from public school business and administrative professionals as follows:

(1) Bus purchases can only be made, per New York State regulations, as an annual operating expense and the difference in cost of each EV bus is more than $200,000.00 higher than the present cost of a diesel bus, creating an annual budget and tax increase to exceed the 2 percent cap for just two of Cooperstown’s 19-bus fleet;

(2) What is your estimate and plan to pay for (other than local school taxes) the total increase for replacing all public school buses?

(3) Schools have round-trip sports runs that exceed the battery capacity of an EV school bus;

(4) Charging stations do not exist in every school and neither does full debt-free financing to construct them; additionally, there are specific charging specifications and devices have not been standardized for all EV makers;

(5) It is unknown if the state has (or will have) enough power production to enable all the buses in our 700 districts to charge simultaneously.

Then, in addition to these immediate obstacles to New York schools, the following bigger-picture unanswerables remain:

1) How will the future power demand be met when planned mandates of EV cars and commercial vehicles, homes, appliances, and businesses are put in effect, and;

2) When/how will nationwide manufacturing capacity, new power generation, and power distribution for any/all of these ambitions (even for New York alone) be attained?

In summary, where are the short- and long-term financial plans to initiate and sustain this grand vision, and why does it fall so severely on public schools whose taxpayers are already over-burdened by ever-increasing state regulations?
This mandate meets no educational goal for students. Neither is it a strategy or plan, but is a visible guarantee of financial chaos and crippling of public education. Please share these easy-to-understand obstacles with other legislators and correct your miscalculation with erasure of this impossible imposition on local public education. It will be far more sensible to begin with a statewide infrastructure initiative necessary to carry out a large-scale reduced emissions goal by proposing statewide voter proposition/s.

Anthony Scalici
Cooperstown

Posted

2 Comments

  1. This is a great letter which raises the issues any school district would encounter in having to switch to EV school buses. Thanks must go to Tony for his thoughtful thinking on the subject. Schools are already facing rising costs without adding this proposal to the list.

  2. This is a great letter which raises the issues any school district would encounter in having to switch to EV school buses. Thanks must go to Tony for his thoughtful thinking on the subject. Schools are already facing rising costs without adding this proposal to the list.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Related Articles

Ruggles Champs Discuss Contest

Ruggles Champs Discuss Contest By WRILEY NELSONCOOPERSTOWN The 146th Ruggles Essay Competition was held at Cooperstown Central School on April 14. Like their predecessors for a century and a half, each member of the junior class wrote a 600-800 word essay. The written works are judged for originality, grammar and vivid language use. Each English class sends finalists to the all-school competition after a preliminary oral performance. First- and second-place winners are selected by a committee of teachers, community members and former victors after a second round of judging based on oratory in front of the entire school.…

In Memoriam Stephen L. Sheldon, 67 July 1, 1955 – May 17, 2023

In Memoriam Stephen L. Sheldon, 67 July 1, 1955 – May 17, 2023 HARTWICK—Stephen Lee Sheldon, a lifelong area resident, passed away Wednesday, May 17, 2023, at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown. He was 67. Born July 1, 1955 in Cooperstown, Steve was one of four sons of William Lee and Grace Patricia (Davidson) Sheldon. He attended Cooperstown Central School and graduated with the Class of 1973. On November 10, 1979, he was joined in marriage to Jane Marie Morris in a ceremony at St. Mary’s “Our Lady of the Lake” Roman Catholic Church in Cooperstown. They moved to Hemlock…

In Memoriam: Roger Colton Smith

COOPERSTOWN—Roger Colton Smith, 87, of Cooperstown, died peacefully at home the morning of Wednesday, January 17, 2024.
Roger was born at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown on April 28, 1936, the son of LeRoy F. Smith and Gertrude E. (Spurbeck) Smith. After graduating from Cooperstown Central School, Class of 1954, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and completed four years of active duty as a radar man on the USS Fremont, remaining in the U.S. Navy Reserve until 1962.…

Putting the Community Back Into the Newspaper

Now through March 30, new annual subscribers to “The Freeman’s Journal” and AllOtsego.com (or subscribers who have lapsed for two or more years) have an opportunity to help their choice of one of four Otsego County charitable organizations.

$5.00 of your subscription will be donated to the nonprofit of your choice:

Cooperstown Farmers’ Market, Cooperstown Food Pantry, Greater Oneonta Historical Society or Super Heroes Humane Society.