10/08/2026
Rising fuel costs aren’t just impacting local drivers. They’re also having a significant effect on school district budgets.
North East ISD is paying about $2.10 a gallon more this school year for diesel than last year, with last week’s price ranging from $5 to $5.38 per gallon. Our District purchases between 7,000 to 8,000 gallons of diesel each week to ensure our students get to school and extracurricular activities.
Since July, NEISD has already spent roughly $1.1 million on fuel. Our District budgeted about $1.6 million for fuel for the entire school year, but Executive Director of Transportation Bill Harrison expects to exceed that amount in six to seven weeks, as prices currently stand.
“None of us likes to see the price of fuel increase, especially diesel,” he said. “There will be some serious discussions moving forward if the price maintains where it’s at and how do we handle that.”
For now, North East ISD is implementing cost-cutting measures to help conserve fuel that will not impact the exceptional educational experience our students deserve.
Some of those measures include cutting idling time and combining routes to reduce the number of miles our buses drive every school day. They average between 16,500 to 17,000 a day.
During the first two weeks of school, drivers would start their buses three minutes before the dismissal bell rang to cool off buses for students, but now with cooler temperatures, they wait until the bell rings to start their engines, reducing idling time by several minutes.
“We’ve got to get creative,” Harrison said. “We transport about 15,500 students a day, so they count on our buses to get to school.”
Additionally, Harrison and his team have been looking at ways to reduce or combine routes to reduce the number of miles driven each day. Even reducing daily miles by a thousand would result in significant cost savings.
But Harrison emphasized that families can rely on our buses to get their students to school – and to help them save on their own fuel costs.
“The bus is an option. They can save money in their own pocket by using the bus running in their neighborhoods,” he said. “It’s a resource for them to use.”
Please visit neisd.net/transportation to learn more about our school buses and their routes.
