Diesel savings may fund new bus purchases

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Due to plummeting diesel fuel prices, the Western Reserve Transit Authority expects to reap $250,000 to $300,000 in fuel-cost savings in 2015, which it will likely put toward the 20-percent local share required for new bus purchases, said Marianne Vaughn, the authority’s secretary-treasurer.

The fuel price in the 2015 purchase contract with Great Lakes Petroleum of Cleveland, which authority trustees recently approved, is $2.16.5 per gallon, which is 96.4 cents cheaper than the 2014 price.

Each new full-size bus costs about $427,000, Vaughn said.

The board also adopted a 2015 operating budget of $12 million, compared with $11 million in 2014, with the increase due to rising parts and labor costs.

Vaughn said she expected the authority’s 0.25-percent countywide sales tax would generate about $8.9 million in revenue in 2014, which is about $1 million more than it generated in 2013.

The board granted 3 percent cost-of-living pay increases to a dozen nonunion employees, effective today, and hired Dean Soroka as its human-resources director, effective Monday.