George Borrello
A bill authorizing a five-year delay in New York’s Electric School Bus Mandate will be included in the state budget bill.
State Senator George Borrello voted for the bill saying it is a breakthrough in his years-long efforts to relieve what he calls, “…the burden of the unaffordable, unrealistic mandate on school districts.”
Under the budget agreement, school districts will now have until July 2032 before they are required to purchase only electric buses, five additional years beyond the deadline that had been set to take effect next year. The timeline for full fleet electrification has also been pushed back, from 2035 to 2040.
Following passage of the mandate in the 2022-23 state budget, Borrello was among the first to raise concerns that have since been borne out by the experiences of early-adopting districts: electric buses struggling to maintain heat during upstate winters without draining battery life, frequent breakdowns and extended periods out of service, and staggering costs that go far beyond the price of the buses themselves, extending to the significant infrastructure upgrades required just to charge them and connect them to the grid.
He noted that New York’s electrical grid has proven to be among the mandate’s significant obstacles.
Borrello said many districts discovered that their local electrical grid could not handle the power demands of electric bus charging stations, and that, even when upgrades were an option, the price tag would land squarely on the school district and its taxpayers.
Jamestown Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Kevin Whitaker called the delay a “wise decision,” “Based on what we’ve seen in the field, whether or not it ultimately is the right call to make as to whether or not electric busses or zero emission busses is the proper way to go. What we do know is that right now the technology does not seem to be mature enough to be reliable enough to transport our kids in the way that we were going to be required to do in about a year, so I am very glad.”
Borrello said the delay is a step in the right direction but he does not view it as a long-term solution. He renewed his call for legislation to repeal the mandate and replace it with a statewide pilot program that would generate real-world data on where, when, and under what conditions electric school buses can realistically operate across a state as large and varied in climate and geography as New York.
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