Board approves purchase of new school buses

Creston Community School District will purchase two new school buses after the CCSD Board of Directors unanimously approved the purchase during Monday’s regular meeting.

The district will purchase two Hoglund Conventional IC 77 passenger buses, priced at $83,500 and $85,250.

“We had them bid a bus for this fiscal year and a bus for next fiscal year,” CCSD Business Manager Billie Jo Greene said. “The first one, the 2018, would be purchased this fiscal year and then, in July, they would deliver the second bus for the next fiscal year for the payment.”

In addition, the district will trade in a 2001 Thomas bus for $1,200 trade-in value and a 1997 AM Tran bus for $1,000 in trade-in value.

“Used buses are not worth anything,” CCSD Transportation Director Bob Beatty reported to the board. “I have stripped the good tires off them, we’ve taken good seat covers out of them. What they’re doing is they’re giving us salvage price for them, because they can’t sell them. If you go to their lots and look at used buses, there will be 50-60 used buses there they can’t get rid of.”

There were bids from both Thomas Bus Sales and Blue Bird that came in slightly cheaper than the bids from Hoglund, but Beatty said those bids did not meet the specifications he gave for the bids.

“When we purchase cars, we went with the cheapest bid,” Board Member Galen Zumbach said. “I see here that some of the buses, the cheapest buses, are not making the bid. Is there a difference in the specs or what was the criteria?”

“They did not meet specs,” Beatty said. “Their stock units they have did not meet the specifications I gave them for the bid.”

Football changes

Admission prices to football games for the 2018 season will change.

Currently, the admission prices for football games is $5 for adults and $4 for students. But, after the district football meeting held two weeks ago, the activities directors from the district schools are proposing an increase to $5 for students and keeping the price for adults at $5.

“A couple of schools fought very hard for $7 and $5, but then we talked about the structures of our community, and then they went ahead and said they would go with $5 and $5 if all the ADs approved,” said CCSD Activities Director Jeff Bevins.

The cost of Creston’s activities tickets for students, which is currently $35, will likely stay the same, Bevins said, since admission prices for all remaining sports will stay at $4 for students.

Bevins also reported there will be a change to the start time for district football games in 2018.

Previously, freshman football games started at 4:45 p.m. on Fridays and varsity games started at 7:30 p.m.

This year, however, freshman games will start at 4:15 p.m. and varsity games at 7 p.m. Junior varsity games will still be 6 p.m. Mondays.

“It was kind of nice, we did that with Clarinda the last two rotations and it was kind of nice starting at 7,” Bevins said. “The biggest concern with some of the schools was having crews there to do the ninth-grade game at 4:15, which, knock on wood, we don’t have any trouble with that here with our town people.”

Bevins said depending on how the non-district games are scheduled by the Iowa High School Athletic Association, some non-district games may start later, depending on what the opposing team wants to do.

In other CCSD news:

• The board approved sharing agreements with Murray for a shared teacher and shared librarian, Orient-Macksburg for a transportation director, high school courses and extra curricular activities, and Nodaway Valley for students to attend industrial technology classes at Creston Community High School.

• Superintendent Steve McDermott reported to the board via telephone call that Austin Smith of Garden & Associates will be providing civil engineering services for the EMS parking, ECC playground and Hurley Creek projects.