Montgomery County electric school bus contract led to millions in wasteful spending, investigation finds

MCPS announced the over-$160-million contract to replace diesel school buses with electric ones in February 2021. The rollout was supposed to include 326 buses over the course of the next four years. But this investigation found that each year, the buses arrived late, there were fewer than the agreed upon amount and the ones that did arrive faced multiple mechanical failures that left them inoperable for extended periods of time. Now, the Office of the Inspector General is saying that MCPS’ failure to hold the contractor accountable to the terms of their contract has led to millions of dollars in wasteful spending. 

Unlike with the diesel buses, MCPS did not purchase the buses outright. The agreement allowed the contractor to retain ownership of the buses while letting the school system use them as a service. And MCPS made no provision in the contract to charge a late fee for delivery like it had when purchasing diesel buses. So when the buses failed to arrive by the agreed upon date of Aug. 1, MCPS lost out on what could have been $1.8 million in late fees, according to the investigation.

When the buses that did arrive had mechanical failures, the school system had a provision in the contract to charge when they were not repaired within five working days. Buses faced mechanical and charging failures on more than 280 instances between February 2022 and March 2024, and more than 180 of those instances qualified for late fees. Still, MCPS did not assess any late fees, and the investigation calculates that MCPS should have charged the contractor $372,100 for those instances.

For the final year of the contract, fiscal year 2025, the contractor told MCPS that it would not be able to fulfill its obligations and provide the amount of buses agreed upon.

As a result of all of these issues, MCPS moved to extend the life of existing and purchase new diesel buses and requested over $14 million from the board of education for this purpose in October 2023. 

MCPS’ Sustainability and Compliance webpage states the school system is committed to “cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2027 and 100% by 2035 compared to 2005 levels,” and that the electric school buses are a part of this plan.