The Suwannee County School Board recently voted to purchase 20 new school buses to update the bus fleet.

The Suwannee County School Board has approved a loan agreement allowing it to purchase new school buses.

Mercedez-Benz Financial Services already approved the $2,147,914 loan on their end before the school board voted to accept it at last week’s meeting.

The school district plans on buying 20 new buses from German manufacturer Daimler AG to add into its rotation.

Each bus would cost about $107,000, said the board’s finance director, Vickie Music-DePratter.

At the meeting, board member Ronald White was the only one to vote against the loan.

White said the district would be better off purchasing seven new buses ever year over a 10-year rotation cycle rather than buying 20 at once every few years.

“If you buy 20 now, you’re just going to run into the same problem a few years down the road,” White said.

The newest buses in the fleet are from 2009, board members mentioned at the meeting.

White said the oldest is from around 1994.

“We got buses that are getting in bad shape,” White said.

There are about 70 buses in the district’s rotation, he added, retiring and adding buses every six or seven years.

School board member Jerry Taylor said the plan to buy 20 buses had been discussed at length in a workshop.

One benefit is the fact that the loan being offered has an incredibly low interest rate, spread out over a good period of time, Taylor said.

“It’s something we can absorb,” he said, “we can handle it financially.”

Another is that the school board transportation director said bringing 20 new buses online would update the fleet to where it needs to be in terms of safety, Taylor added.

“The number one reason is safety,” Taylor said.

According to purchase order information from the school board, the buses should be delivered in May 2016.