Texas Association of School Boards Fuel<\/a> Co-op, which allows participating school districts to lock in fuel rates for the year.<\/p>\n\u201cYou have districts from all over the state of Texas joining the Fuel Co-op. So, the more members that they have as a part of the cooperative, the lower the gas prices can be for all of the members,\u201d said NISD Director of Transportation, Tesilia Soliz.<\/p>\n
The locked-in rate gives the district more certainty about what it will pay throughout the year, but the rate is still significantly higher than last year. NISD paid about $3.31 per gallon for diesel last year. This year, its locked-in rate is $4.46 per gallon.<\/p>\n
Soliz said the difference is expected to add nearly $1 million to the district\u2019s fuel budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did a comparison of the two to come up with a differential of almost a million dollar difference in our budget that\u2019s going to be required to cover the increasing costs of fuel prices,\u201d Soliz said.<\/p>\n
NISD expects to use about 550,000 gallons of fuel next fiscal year, with projected fuel costs of about $2.4 million. That represents a 47% increase from last year. The district operates 967 buses, making it one of the largest school bus fleets in Texas.<\/p>\n
Finding ways to save<\/p>\n
Despite the higher costs, transportation officials said cutting bus service is not a simple option.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really haven\u2019t been able to make any drastic changes into the operations itself,\u201d Soliz added. \u201cIt\u2019s a necessity. It has to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both districts are also limiting how long buses idle while waiting on school campuses. NEISD has a three-minute idling policy, while NISD asks drivers to turn buses off if they expect to wait longer than 10 minutes, helping reduce unnecessary fuel use.<\/p>\n
NEISD has also been examining its routes and looking for ways to reduce the number of miles buses travel without affecting the transportation students rely on. Harrison said students remain the district\u2019s priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to make sure we get every kid to school. So we still need every bus,\u201d Harrison said.<\/p>\n
What happens at the pump doesn\u2019t just affect the cost of filling a tank for you and your family. It can influence how school districts plan for the transportation needs of thousands of students next year and the year after that.<\/p>\n
KSAT also reached out to San Antonio Independent School District to see how rising prices are affecting its budget.<\/p>\n
The district said it operates under a fixed-rate contract, which NISD also does. SAISD added they may also see delays in diesel deliveries.<\/p>\n
Our news team requested an interview with SAISD several times but has not received a response since the initial submission in September.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 For school districts, higher fuel prices can mean a much bigger bill than what drivers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19835,698,2050,109153,163,84615,22693,16868,82,84,83,632,4119],"class_list":["post-459829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-aaa","tag-bexar-county","tag-budget","tag-diesel","tag-education","tag-fuel-prices","tag-neisd","tag-nisd","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sapd","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}