Alabama school districts to receive $7.8M for new electric buses

Seven school districts across the state are about to receive a big boost to their transportation services.

Through the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 Clean School Bus Program competition, the school districts selected will receive a combined $7.865 million federal funds to buy 24 new electric school buses.

Keep reading to see which of the state’s school districts will be impacted + how they were selected by the EPA.

24 electric buses for 7 school districts

The federal program pays for the complete cost of the buses, and it awarded nearly $900 million nationwide to 530 school districts. The seven school districts from Alabama chosen include:

• Clay County: 3 buses, $1.035 million
• Fort Payne City: 4 buses, $1.38 million
• Gulf Shores City: 3 buses, $600,000
• Lanett City: 5 buses, $1.745 million
• Jasper City: 2 buses, $690,000
• Montgomery County: 2 buses, $690,000
• Selma City: 5 buses, $1.725 million

The schools were selected after an analysis identified different bus routes across the country where existing school buses could be replaced with zero-emission and clean school buses.

“We are pleased that our analysis played a key role in school systems choosing to apply for and ultimately succeed in securing these federal funds for electric school buses… This is a great development for these school systems to better serve their communities with clean emission vehicles, while also updating their transportation fleet by leveraging federal dollars.”

~ Casey Foster, fleet manager for the Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition

Foster’s analysis identified 41 school systems with routes that were promising candidates for the Clean School Bus Program. He met with officials from nearly 20 school systems, and those meetings included representatives from Alabama Power and the Alabama Propane Gas Association.

Additional schools on the waitlist

In addition to Alabama’s seven winning school systems in the Clean School Bus Program, four others were waitlisted for electric or propane-fueled school buses including:

• Albertville City: 9 electric buses, $3.145 million
• Boaz City: 2 electric buses, $690,000
• Conecuh County: 6 electric buses, $2.070 million
• Mobile County: 25 propane-fueled buses, $875,000

If a winner does not complete the remaining required steps, drops out or is otherwise deemed ineligible, those funds will then be offered to a 2023 waitlisted candidate.

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