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Highlands Today

Businesspeople, Sheriff, School Bus Fleet Struggle With Inflated Prices

Kathy Wateres/Highlands Today

From left: Bus drivers Sharon Bunker, Kim Rogers and Charlotte Shiplett chat while waiting for students at Avon Park Middle School. Bunker and Rogers said routes were dropped and a stop added to the daily school bus schedule to save mileage.

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By Gary Pinnell | Highlands Today

Published: May 25, 2008

SEBRING — It seems the pain at the pump may not be the only way we'll pay for high gasoline prices.

While medical device repairman Jason Rybinski is parking his 2005 GMC Sierra pickup truck in favor of a Japanese sedan, Sheriff Susan Benton is upping her 2009 gasoline budget from $498,000 to $800,000. So even though the sheriff has told her department heads to assemble a flat budget, more tax money than ever will buy fuel for deputies to protect Highlands County.

Gas prices are zooming out of reach so quickly, it's difficult even to plan, said Scott Noethlich, who will be Sebring's city manager in July when his boss retires.

When he was assembling next year's budget for the city, Noethlich assumed gasoline would sell for $4 a gallon next year. But investment banker Goldman Sachs has suggested a barrel of crude could super-spike — their phrase — at $200 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

And they may be right. It was Goldman Sachs which correctly predicted $4 a gallon gas by the summer of 2008. If it is accurate again, gas could sell for $7 or $8 a gallon — by next summer.

Rising Need
"In two weeks, we'll be at full staff," said Lisa Burley, Benton's chief of staff. And since the sheriff's office will finally have all the deputies on the road Benton has been trying to hire since she took office three years ago, Burley has projected 200,000 gallons of gas will be used instead of the 182,000 gallons expended last year.

But more significant than that, $2.34 per gallon was budgeted last year.

"We've parked all our non-sworn vehicles," Benton said. Uniformed deputies drive patrol units; the rest of the staff, like Burley, drive regular cars. "I've limited the use to on-duty only. Deputies were going to the gym, and they could drive their units. Or if they were driving to school, they were allowed to drive their units. We have temporarily ceased all that use. If they're not responding to calls, their car is parked."

And that's creating a problem too. Since there's insufficient parking behind the sheriff's office, the lot is overflowing with official vehicles.

"There's no place to park the cars," Burley said.

The use of heavier Ford Crown Victorias is being limited only to marked patrol cars, Benton said. For other officers, she's buying smaller, more gas efficient, front-wheel drive Chevrolet Impalas.

Both have police packages – meaning heavier alternators and bigger engines – but rear-wheel drive Crown Vics are necessary because there's more room inside.

"They're in those cars 12 hours a day," Benton said. "They have cages, a shotgun rack, a computer, radios. They have to have the space. It gets really crunched up in there."

Driving Decisions
Interim Director Mary Foy isn't sure why applications for rent and utilities assistance have quadrupled in the past year, from 25 to 98.

Ace Hardware has laid off half its workforce. The recession in the housing market has idled carpenters and closed small businesses. There are fewer real estate agents selling houses. And of course, the seasonal citrus business is slowing down for the summer because most of the crop has been picked, and the migrant workers are moving north to apples and peaches and tobacco.

But, said Foy, "I think gasoline is driving everything."

Small Cars
A GMC Sierra pickup truck holds most of the spare parts Jason Rybinski needed to repair hospital beds and ambulance stretchers and other biomedical equipment when he drives from his home in Frostproof to Miami or Daytona. But the full-sized pickup truck averages 16 miles per gallon.

So Rybinski parked his truck and bought a 2007 Suzuki Reno, which never seems to have everything he needs. But the five-door hatchback averages a thrifty 30 miles per gallon on the highway, and it costs only $55 for a fill-up. The weekly difference is about $100.

"I fill up a minimum of twice a week," said Rybinski, who owns Biomatrix Clinical Services. A 25-gallon tank, at $3.80 a gallon, holds $95 worth of fuel.

"I have to leave some of the tools at home," Rybinski said. "I wait until I get a call, and then I load it up. But it wasn't necessarily a tough decision."

Big Buses
Mass transit is the most efficient way of moving large groups of people. And the school district's 130 buses are Highlands County's only mass transit system. But they don't run so very far on a gallon of diesel.

"About six and a half to seven and a half miles per gallon," said David Solomon, director of school bus transportation.

Since it buys so much fuel, the school district can require local gasoline sellers like Grimsley, Taylor and Hicks to bid. The lowest usually offers about a 20-cent discount from the $4.60 a bus would ordinarily pay at the pump.

What's he budgeting for next year?

"It's a moving target," Solomon said. "When this school year started, it was $3.02. We thought it would cap at that price."

So Solomon is searching for alternatives: "At Fort Myers, they're looking at bio-fuel." That's a mixture of diesel and vegetable oils or animal fats.

"We're also consolidating bus routes, to make sure they're efficient as possible," Solomon said.

But that's also a moving target, because more students are riding the bus these days. Older ones can't afford to drive their own cars, and the parents of younger children also are finding buses cheaper.

What's dumbfounding Stanley Wells is what's selling and what's not.

"I still can't predict what they're going to buy," said Wells, the Dodge and Chrysler dealer in Avon Park. They're doing well with small cars, like the Caliber, Avenger and the new crossover mini-van and SUV, called the Journey. But big vehicles are still selling well, he said.

One reason why: Chrysler is offering a rebate for the first 12,000 gallons of gas or diesel used by new cars, each year for the next three years.

"We guarantee $2.99 a gallon," Wells said. Visa or Mastercard will directly bill Chrysler for any amount over $2.99. As of Friday, a gallon of regular costs $3.91 at the Gate station in Sebring. So at $4 per gallon, 12,000 gallons could cost Chrysler $12,000 each year for each vehicle sold.

Wonder how long that rebate deal will be offered?

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