03-03-2025
School buses are hard to come by these days, so this district bought one off Craigslist
Chief Financial Officer Dave Montoya wasn't kidding when he said Poudre School District was looking far and wide for available school buses to upgrade its aging fleet.
While discussing a purchase order for 17 new buses — at a cost of more than $2.5 million — with the Board of Education at its meeting Feb. 25, district officials acknowledged that PSD found a used school bus locally on Craigslist last spring that is now being driven more than 170 miles a day.
'Yes, PSD just acknowledged that it bought a bus on Craigslist; we're proud of it,' Superintendent Brian Kingsley said.
New school buses have been hard to come by in recent years, said Montoya and Dan Weaver, PSD's vehicle maintenance manager. PSD is still awaiting delivery of five buses that were ordered more than two years ago, Weaver said.
So, the opportunity to purchase a bus that could be put on the road immediately was more appealing than ever when a technician in the transportation department saw the listing on Craigslist and brought it to Weaver's attention.
Weaver scoffed at first but then took a closer look. He had seen this particular school bus from the road while driving past the Rist Canyon Inn in Laporte and said it looked to be in good condition.
'Then I started reading about it,' Weaver said. 'It had low mileage, it had a Cummins engine, Allison transmission — all the things that we look for in lasting products — and, basically, it was like I'm going to give it a shot.'
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It also had wheelchair accessibility with a wheelchair lift, engine braking, automatic tire chains and seats on track rails, allowing them to be reversed or removed, as needed, for different seating configurations.
Allan Liebow, the owner of Rist Canyon Inn, agreed to allow PSD to take the bus to its shop in April 2024 and spend as much time as it needed to look it over. Weaver was also able to contact the previous owner, Aurora Public Schools, and discuss its maintenance and repair records with people in its transportation department. The Aurora district had received a good deal on a large quantity of new gasoline-fueled buses and needed to offload some of its existing diesel-fueled fleet, and sent this particular bus — a 2013 Freightliner Thomas Built Saf-T-Liner C2 rear-wheel drive, with a wheelchair lift and capacity for up to 56 passengers, according to the 2022 auction listing — to public auction with others.
The sale price was $13,500, Liebow and Weaver each said, about $150,000 less than what PSD would pay for a comparable new bus. And it only had 80,810 miles on it — more than 100,000 fewer than the average bus in PSD's aging fleet.
Liebow said he was praised like a hero when he went to PSD's transportation offices to complete the paperwork on the sale. He found two other buses at public auction that he has modified and now uses to shuttle guests to and from local hotels to weddings and receptions at Rist Canyon Inn and was glad he could help the district 'save some money and fill a need,' he said Feb. 26.
Liebow 'was a really nice guy, really helpful, and he was proud it was going back to a school district and being put to good use,' Weaver said. 'We've been using it as one of our go-to vehicles.'
The bus, No. 320 officially, but better known as 'Craig,' is serving one of the longest routes in PSD, picking students up along U.S. Highway 287 within a half-mile of the Wyoming border and bringing them to Poudre High School and back each day. In between the morning pickup and afternoon drop-off, driver Jon Pixler also picks up students at Putnam Elementary School and drives them home to various locations in north Fort Collins, stretching as far east as the Maple Hill neighborhood just west of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.
Pixler says he's put about 20,000 miles on the bus this school year, driving more than 170 miles each day.
'It drives pretty much like any other bus,' Pixler said after dropping students off at Poudre High on Feb. 26. 'It's been a good bus so far.'
Voter-approval of a debt-free mill levy in November has allowed PSD to begin updating its aging fleet of school buses.
The average PSD school bus is 16 years old and has 183,000 miles on it, Weaver said. By the end of the school year, the average mileage will increase to 198,000. About 30% of PSD's buses are more than 20 years old, noting the Colorado Department of Education recommends but does not require buses that are more than 20 years old to be taken out of service.
PSD owns 179 school buses, Weaver said, including 12 that have been taken out of commission because they need expensive repairs that aren't worth making on buses that old and eight others that are out of service undergoing long-term repairs.
PSD buses drove more than 2.1 million miles during the 2023-24 school year, Weaver said, while serving a district that spans more than 1,800 square miles — or about 1 ½ times the size of the state of Rhode Island, First Services transportation consultant Colton Graham told the Board of Education during a remote presentation Feb. 25.
Working with Montoya, Weaver began developing a replacement plan designed to refresh PSD's bus fleet over the next 10 to 15 years, using money from the debt-free mill levy that was approved to help cover the costs of maintenance and replacement cycles.
The goal, he said, is to make what is now the average age of the fleet — 16 years old — the maximum age through a gradual update. Replacing too many buses at one time, Montoya said, could create a problem for others 15 years or so down the road when they would all need to be replaced again.
So, the plan is to upgrade the fleet incrementally, beginning with the 17 on the purchase order that was approved unanimously by the seven-member school board during the Feb. 25 meeting.
Lingering supply-chain issues that began during the COVID-19 pandemic continue to limit the availability of new school buses, Montoya and Weaver said. As a result, PSD abandoned its plan to stick to a single supplier while soliciting bids in January for new buses.
Availability was a significant factor, even if it meant paying a bit more money.
And what the district chose to buy are 17 buses from three different vendors, made by four different manufacturers.
Here's the breakdown:
Five 77-passenger 2025 Thomas Class C diesel buses from Midwest Bus Sales, equipped with engine-braking systems and automatic tire chains, for $144,860 apiece. These buses can be delivered within 60-90 days of receipt of the order, the vendor said in its bid.
Five 47-passenger 2026 Blue Bird Class C diesel buses from Colorado West Equipment, equipped with front air-conditioning, integrated five-point harnesses, engine braking systems and automatic tire chains, for $151,332 apiece. Buses will be delivered within 6-8 months of receipt of the order, the vendor said in its bid.
Five 33-passenger 2026 Blue Bird Class C wheelchair-accessible buses from Colorado West Equipment, equipped with air-conditioning, integrated five-point harnesses, engine-braking systems, automatic tire chains and track-mounted removable seats for versatile configuration options, for $166,797 apiece, Buses will be delivered within 6-8 months of receipt of the order, the vendor said in its bid.
Two 14-passenger 2025 Collins Class A gasoline buses from Davey Coach Sales, with air-conditioning and integrated five-point harnesses, for $109,848 apiece. These buses should be delivered within 4-5 months of receipt of the order, according to the bid.
All of the buses come with five-year or 100,000-mile engine warranties, and all but the 14-passenger buses come with seven-year unlimited-mile transmission warranties. The transmission warranty on the 14-passenger buses is for five years or 100,000 miles.
Weaver expects the five buses PSD ordered in January 2024 to be delivered within the next month or so, he said.
Two of those buses are 77-passenger International Class C diesel buses, and the other three are 33-passenger Blue Bird Class C buses, he said.
Montoya said the district continues to work with Highland Electric Fleets about the purchase and maintenance of two electric school buses through an Environmental Protection Agency grant that the district was awarded in January 2024.
PSD has not entered into any contracts through that grant, Montoya said Tuesday night, and the status of the grant funding under the administration of President Donald Trump is not clear.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@ and
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: PSD turns to Craigslist in search for available school buses to buy
