As was reported by The Post-Journal last week, the state budget will include a five-year delay of the state’s electric school bus mandate.

State Sen. George Borrello, R-Sunset Bay, supported the budget bill passed late Wednesday authorizing a five-year delay to New York’s electric school bus mandate, calling it a breakthrough in his years-long efforts to relieve the burden of the unaffordable, unrealistic mandate on school districts. Under the budget agreement, school districts will now have until July 2032 before they are required to purchase only electric buses, five additional years beyond the deadline that had been set to take effect next year. The timeline for full fleet electrification has also been pushed back, from 2035 to 2040.

“For years, my Republican colleagues and I have warned that this mandate was unaffordable, unrealistic and unfair to school districts and for years, those warnings fell on deaf ears in Albany,” Borrello said. “I am gratified that the voices of so many school board members, administrators, concerned parents and taxpayers have finally been heard. Our schools deserve the breathing room this delay provides.”

Following passage of the mandate in the 2022-23 state budget, Borrello was among the first to raise concerns that have since been borne out by the experiences of early-adopting districts: electric buses struggling to maintain heat during upstate winters without draining battery life, frequent breakdowns and extended periods out of service, and staggering costs that go far beyond the price of the buses themselves, extending to the significant infrastructure upgrades required just to charge them and connect them to the grid.

He noted that New York’s electrical grid has proven to be among the mandate’s significant obstacles. He said many districts discovered that their local electrical grid could not handle the power demands of electric bus charging stations, and that, even when upgrades were an option, the price tag would land squarely on the school district and its taxpayers.

While welcoming the delay as a step in the right direction, Borrello made clear he does not view it as a long-term solution. He renewed his call for legislation to repeal the mandate and replace it with a statewide pilot program that would generate real-world data on where, when, and under what conditions electric school buses can realistically operate across a state as large and varied in climate and geography as New York.

“This additional time is genuinely valuable, and I am grateful that Albany finally listened,” Borrello said. “At the same time, I want to be clear: this delay needs to be accompanied by substantive changes. The fundamental problems with this mandate have not gone away; they have been deferred. I will continue to push for my legislation which requires full repeal and replacement with a responsible pilot program that gives us real data and gets us to the right answer. New York’s school districts, taxpayers, and students deserve nothing less.”