Three more area school districts are slated for new buses in the fifth and final round of Arizona’s Lower-Emission School Bus Program awards.

In his April 8 statement, Governor Doug Ducey announced $5 million in funding to buy 45 new school buses for rural school districts and charter schools across Arizona.

In June 2018, Ducey had announced a $38 million plan to buy an estimated 280 school buses using settlement funds from the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust.

After completing four waves of funding totaling $31.8 million to buy 285 buses, the State had remaining funds available to allocate additional buses, the statement said.

Arizona chose to allocate the remaining funds for buses to schools in rural counties, working directly with 13 rural county school superintendents.

The State removed all requirements for receiving a bus, except for those required by the original settlement agreement, and used a consistent application process to ascertain the needs of those rural districts, the April 8 statement said.

Many of the school districts receiving buses in the final allocation had not received a bus during the first four waves.

In Gila County, the Globe Unified and Payson Unified school districts will receive one new school bus each.

Globe Superintendent Jerry Jennex described his district as “pleased to have been included in the last wave” of the awards.

“We are grateful to the Governor’s Office and especially to County Superintendent Roy Sandoval,” who helped facilitate both the Globe and Payson awards in Gila County, he told the Silver Belt. “This award will help the Globe Unified School District improve its bus fleet.”

Jennex said that while the district will receive about $110,000 from the governor’s office, “our buses cost about $165,000 a piece,” meaning that the district will have to put about $55,000 toward its new bus.

Since clean air is part of the reason behind the Volkswagen settlement, the district “will take a less efficient bus out of service,” Jennex said.

Notified about the award about a month ago, the district is still shopping and “we haven’t selected one yet,” he told the Silver Belt.

Jennex believes the district will have its new bus sometime in fall 2019.

Ray Unified School District, in Kearny, is one of eight Pinal County school districts to receive buses in this last round.

Ray Principal Rochelle Pacheco called her district “grateful to be the recipient of a new bus from the VW Settlement.”

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our district and students to benefit from this new bus,” she said.

Pacheco also thanked the district’s Transportation Supervisor Jim McDowell “for diligently submitting the application.”

“A very big thank you from a school that was awarded a new school bus,” she said.

The seven other Pinal County schools are Stanfield, Oracle and Toltec Elementary School Districts, Excalibur Charter Schools in Apache Junction; J.O. Combs Unified School Districts in San Tan Valley, Florence Unified School District and the Santa Cruz Union High School District.

Ducey said that investing in K-12 schools remains a top priority.

“Arizona found an innovative way to use these settlement funds to invest in public education. The new school buses have gone a long way to benefit Arizona schools, especially those in low-income districts and rural communities,” he said in his April 8 statement.

With its final wave of funding, Arizona has allocated a total of $36.8 million for the purchase of 330 school buses at 141 school districts and charter schools.

San Carlos Unified, Miami Unified and the Young Elementary School Districts, were awarded $110,000 each to buy new buses.

The state’s Lower-Emissions School Bus Program gave money to several school districts and charter schools, as well as the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind, to replace aging and high-mileage school buses.

Diesel school buses proposed for replacement had to be owned by the school system, be at least 15 years old and have more than 100,000 miles.

In January 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against Volkswagen for Clean Air Act violations, after it had modified its vehicles to cheat emissions tests.

The resulting settlement agreement required Volkswagen to spend $10 billion to either buy back the vehicles or compensate the owners, as well as $4.7 billion to offset pollution from the modified cars, the statement said.

The plan also included money for other mission critical projects, such as supporting wildland fire crews and equipment for the Arizona Department of Transportation.