Anchor Bay Public Schools last week received a grant for $600,000 to supplement the purchase of three electric-powered school buses (MACOMB DAILY FILE PHOTO)
Two Macomb County school districts are receiving a portion of $24 million in federal funds to purchase electric or low-emission school buses and related equipment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week announced a list of 27 school districts in Michigan that were awarded the funding through the Clean School Bus Rebate program to buy 100 buses as part of a five-year, $5 billion plan approved in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021.
In Macomb County, the districts are Anchor Bay School District based in St. Clair County’s Casco Township and Chippewa Valley Schools, which contains northern Clinton and Macomb townships.
Anchor Bay will receive $600,000 for three buses, while Chippewa Valley is in line for $400,000 for two buses.
According to Todd Rathbun, an assistant superintendent for Anchor Bay Schools, which serves students in New Baltimore and portions of Chesterfield Township, the grant can be used for the purchase of an electric bus and any infrastructure required to power or charge the vehicles.
Rathbun said a separate Clean Bus Energy Grant, a $125 million program aimed at helping Michigan school districts replace aging diesel school buses with cleaner alternatives, are available to help the districts with up to 70% of the cost of an electric school bus.
“Anchor Bay is in the process of making application for this grant,” Rothbun said, adding it can be used in conjunction with the EPA’s 2023 Clean School Bus Rebate funds.
One challenge for schools is a lack of infra for charging stations for electric buses.
Federal officials say the EPA works with school district to make sure they have the infrastructure needed to needed to charge the new buses. They admit the technology is lagging in that area, but are confident it will eventually catch up.
Anchor Bay Superintendent Phil Jankowski said his district doesn’t have the charging stations needed to power the buses — yet.
“The plan is to add them using funds from the various grants,” he said.
Also DTE Energy offers rebates for utility business and commercial electric customers with eligible fleets that install qualified EV chargers, according to Anchor Bay leaders. The program called, efleets charger rebate, provides a rebate is $2,500 per port on the chargers.
The EPA’s Clean School Bus Program is designed to support the replacement of older, high-emission school buses linked to health issues such as asthma in children.
This latest round of funding builds off prior awards in Michigan: The agency awarded about $52.6 million for Michigan schools to replace 136 buses under the program last year and separately announced in January that Detroit, Lansing and Pontiac schools would each receive funds $5.6 million.
Nationwide, the EPA said it has so far awarded almost $3 billion to fund approximately 8,500 school bus replacements at over 1,000 schools.
About 92% of the buses in the latest round of awards will be electric, according to the agency. The rest will use propane or compressed natural gas, which are less polluting than diesel.
Read More: Two Macomb County school districts in line for federal funds to buy electric