Dr. Dwight Bonk

HOPEWELL JUNCTION – The Wappingers Central School District (WCSD) is calling on state regulators to examine whether electric utilities are ready to support New York’s school bus electrification mandate, warning that grid infrastructure, not political will, is the real obstacle. In a letter filed April 9 with the New York State Public Service Commission, Superintendent Dr. Dwight Bonk and Board of Education President Marie Johnson backed a petition by the Lower Hudson Education Coalition asking the commission to open a formal inquiry into the readiness of utilities.

“I do not recommend purchasing electric buses until the ability to power these buses is studied further,” said Dr. Bonk, who has repeatedly displayed his passion for the program, provided it is done in a feasible manner.
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School bus transportation experts have told Mid-Hudson News that the state legislature needs to change the compliance dates because the existing timelines, coupled with the available funding, make the deadlines unattainable.
A fleet electrification plan completed by the WCSD in 2025 found that fully converting its 261-bus fleet,  the largest district-owned operation in New York State, would require a new 2.5-megawatt utility transformer, 196 charging ports across three compounds, and between $134 million and $140 million in capital investment.

Meanwhile, the district has received no timeline estimates from its utility, Central Hudson Gas & Electric. “The critical constraint our district faces is not the availability of electric buses or incentive funding; it is the electric grid infrastructure required to charge them,” the letter states.

The filing comes as New York’s mandate, which requires all new bus purchases to be zero-emission by 2027 and all buses on the road converted by 2035, faces growing resistance from districts statewide. Electric buses cost two to three times as much as diesel equivalents, and the state set aside $500 million in the 2022 Environmental Bond Act for Government Technology to help offset those costs, but many districts say this amount is inadequate.

WCSD is not asking to scrap or delay the mandate, but is asking the commission to require utilities to provide concrete timelines and cost projections so that districts can plan ahead with their budgets. The commission had not responded to the petition as of publication.


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