The School District of Lee County will replace 43 buses with new ones, paying approximately $4,810,625 in total.

The diesel buses have an individual cost of $111,875 each. The district will piggyback the purchase with the Florida Department of Education’s bus purchases and optional equipment.

“The 43 buses that we are trying to obtain, they don’t require additional drivers. They are replacing older buses in the fleet,” Budget Director Ami Desamours to the Lee County School Board during a workshop Monday.

The board approved the purchases in a regular meeting Tuesday night but not before spending time at the workshop to ask staff if they had looked into electric buses.

The board was told electric buses have an estimated cost of $400,000 each, or about four times the cost of diesel.

Desamours said staff had not applied for any grant money for electric buses. They had, however, researched them as an option, but have found some issues including the cost of those buses and necessary infrastructure, the length of routes in terms of amount of battery life left and how long it would take to charge a battery.

Board member Betsy Vaughn said at some point the district needs to get on that “bus train” and seriously start looking at bringing in some of the new technology to the district before it becomes a requirement down the road.

“Start with little steps, or at least apply for grants,” she said.

With fuel prices increasing, Board member Melisa Giovannelli said it wouldn’t hurt to look into seeking possible savings.

“Something to look into and curious of the benefits because I think they are there, especially with the fuel prices,” she said.