TERRE HAUTE —
The Vigo County School Board agreed to donate a used school bus to the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency to serve as a Mobile Command Unit.
The board approved the donation by a 6-0 vote Monday.
The district hopes to turn the bus over to EMA by the end of this month, said Franklin Fennell, VCSC director of facility support and transportation. The bus has about 200,000 miles on it.
Dorene Hojnicki, director of Vigo County’s EMA, made the request.
During a recent search-and-rescue effort involving a 12-year-old girl missing from northern Vigo County, “One of the lessons learned by VCEMA during that response was the inadequacy of our agency’s Mobile Command Trailer. As we have talked with other underfunded agencies, the vehicle most effectively transformed into use as a mobile command center is a large bus,” she wrote in a letter to Superintendent Dan Tanoos.
Tanoos explained Monday that during that search-and-rescue effort in early May, the leadership of different agencies wanted to meet in the Mobile Command center, but “It was so small we couldn’t all fit in there to have a conversation.”
It was then that Hojnicki asked about the donation of a no-longer-used school bus. “I think it’s very appropriate and very much needed,” Tanoos said.
The bus is one out of about 10 to 12 older buses that will be taken out of use by the district. The others are typically sold at auction. “We’ll pull the best one to meet their needs,” Tanoos said.
VCEMA will have sole ownership and liability.
Hojnicki said EMA deputy directors J.D. Kesler and Keith Holbert will work on converting the school bus as the Mobile Command center.
EMA doesn’t have any special funding for the project. “It’s whatever we can scrape together out of our budget and any donations we would get,” she said.
She hopes to have it in use by Jan. 1. “It will take us awhile,” she said. Completing the project also depends on any response activities EMA must do as well as other events going on in the county.
The donated bus “will help tremendously,” Hojnicki said.
In another matter, the School Board approved textbook fees for the 2012-13 school year.
Fees will remain the same at the elementary level and decrease in middle school.
The fees will remain $75 for half-day kindergarten, $97 for full-day kindergarten and $121 in grades 1 through 5.
In grade 6, fees will be $129, a decrease of $4, while in grades 7/8, the fees will be $134, a decrease of $3. The fees are calculated according to formula found in state statute.
Board member Jackie Lower said she was pleased to see a reduction in some of the fees. “I think that will be welcomed by many,” she said.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@tribstar.com.
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VCSC donates school bus to EMA
Vehicle will be used for mobile command unit
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