This post is part of a series chronicling news coverage of rising gas prices in the United States. See more here.
A Pennsylvania NBC station reports rising fuel prices are making school buses more expensive to run
School superintendent: “If you look at a $2 increase, that could be an $8,000 increase per month. That could equate to a teacher.”
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Video file
Citation
From a May 4, 2026, video uploaded to the YouTube channel of WJACTV
JEN JOHNSON (ANCHOR): Prices aren't just impacting drivers at the pump. Some of our local school districts are having to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get children to school.
SEAN EILER (ANCHOR): Brock Owens has more on what school officials are saying about the impact gas prices are having now and could have moving forward. Brock.
BROCK OWENS (REPORTER): Well, Jen and Sean, as one superintendent put it to me when budgeting for a school, the unexpected happening is expected, but some are still feeling the impacts right now from higher prices at the pump and school officials are planning now for next year to have potentially higher gas prices and the strain that it could have.
Some schools are starting to feel the effects of rising gas and diesel prices, saying running the school buses is costing them thousands of dollars a month.
THOMAS MITCHELL (SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT): A dollar increase over that would be about an additional $36,000 to our annual budget, or about, I think it'd be about $4,000 per month. If you look at a $2 increase, that could be an $8,000 increase per month. That could equate to a teacher or some other important function of the school district.