GUILDERLAND — A white towel held over the exhaust pipe of a new diesel-powered school bus stays white, according to a film the school board viewed last week.

Transportation Supervisor Danielle Poirier, in presenting her department’s annual request for buses next year, included a comparison among buses fueled with propane, diesel, and gasoline.

Her recommendation is to stay with diesel buses for now and to buy 12 new ones next year for a total cost of $1.1 million.

The film, “The Evolution of Clean Diesel: White-Towel Test.,” shows a man holding a white towel, for 10 seconds, over the exhaust pipe of a 2000 bus (the towel shows a black circle), of a 2008 bus (the towel has a gray circle), and of a 2015 bus (the towel looks white).

“Pretty impressive,” said Poirier.

She presented a chart comparing buses that run on propane, which cost $121,000 each, get 3.5 miles per gallon with subsidized fuel that costs 62 cents per gallon; with diesel buses, which cost $113,000 each, get 7.5 miles per gallon with fuel that costs $1.32 per gallon; and with buses that run on gasoline, which cost $108,000 each, get 7 miles per gallon with fuel that costs $1.46 per gallon.

Guilderland currently has pumps for diesel and gasoline but pumps would need to be installed for propane. Poirier said there is limited space at the bus garage and a propane fueling station would eat into the athletic field. The closest propane pump is in Rotterdam.

She also said the bus technicians would need different training for the propane buses and different tools would be needed for the garage.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Neil Sanders calculated what the overall cost, at current fuel prices, would be for 10 years: $127,860 for a bus fueled with gas; $130,000 for a diesel bus; and $196,670 for a bus fueled on subsidized propane and $208,670 for a bus fueled with unsubsidized propane. Building a propane fueling station would cost between $55,000 and $250,000, Sanders said.

He concluded, “Gas comes out the cheapest followed by diesel.”

Currently the district has diesel buses. Poirier said she was impressed with the new gasoline buses but didn’t think the district should be a “guinea pig.”

Guilderland transports 4,944 students with one outsourced bus route and 74-and-a-half in-house bus routes. Forty-nine are in-district routes and 25-and-a-half are out-of-district routes. The district is required to transport special-needs students to programs within 50 miles, and also to transport students to private and parochial schools within 15 miles.

Guilderland now has 113 vehicles in its fleet: 75 buses for 66 passengers, 19 for 30 passengers, 11 that hold 18 passengers and one wheelchair, four minivans, two buses that hold 24 passengers and three wheelchairs, and two Suburbans.

There is just one hour each school day — from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. — when Guilderland buses are not on the road, she said.

Poirier said the district had formerly committed to a 10-year replacement plan but now has 13 buses that are over 10 years old and one of them is 14 years old. The average mileage of the buses older than 10 is 135,869.

“Our biggest nemesis is the corrosion of the bodies,” said Poirier, displaying pictures of rusted parts both outside and inside the bus.

Saying, “We have every preventative maintenance we can have,” she detailed those measures, including annual application of a rust protection substance, washing buses and rinsing the undercarriage, steam-cleaning the undercarriage twice a year, and hand-applying wax.

“We can’t do anymore to protect our buses from salt and sand,” said Poirier.

She itemized the cost of various common repairs — $2,000 for exhaust systems, $900 for a fuel tank, up to $5,000 for body corrosion — and said the average value for a decade-old bus is $900. She said it wasn’t wise to pay for expensive repairs on buses worth so little.

For next year, Poirier proposed the district spend $1,111,000 to buy seven 66-passenger buses for a total of $818,000; three 30-passenger buses with air conditioning for $164,000; and two 24-passenger buses with air conditioning and a wheelchair lift for $129,000.

“A lot of our special-needs children require air-conditioning,” Poirier said when asked about it by board member Colleen O’Connell. The board will vote on the proposal later, and voters will have final say on the proposition on May 17.

Part of the bus proposition will also include a tractor for the maintenance department.

Supervisor of Buildings and Grounds Clifford Nooney said that the 1995 tractor currently used by the district is in “fair to poor condition.”

He recommends buying a new, larger model with increased lifting capacity so it can serve as backup to the district’s propane-operated fork life. The new tractor would cost $50,000; the 1995 tractor would be traded in for $5,000, resulting in a net cost of $45,000, Nooney said.

The tractor is used for moving bulk materials, removing snow, and maintaining athletic fields, said Nooney.

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Heard from Superintendent Marie Wiles that two pre-kindergarten programs in the community had had applied to use vacant school classrooms in the fall. A task force had come up with recommendations to use the excess space rather than closing a school. The task force committee that looked at pre-K providers is reviewing the two applications and is to select one on March 9. The school board will consider the recommendation at its March 22 meeting;

— Unanimously agreed to hire its architect CSArch, for $28,500, to come up with a plan to re-roof the Guilderland Public Library at an estimated construction cost of $380,000.

“We’re looking to have the school district be the front end for the library,” said Sanders, stressing, “The library is paying full cost of all library improvements.”

This will save the library money, Sanders said. “This will be the first step in this process,” he said.

Guilderland’s superintendent of schools, Marie Wiles, and the director of the public library, Timothy Wiles, are married.

The school board scheduled its annual meeting with the library board for April 6; Superintendent Wiles said the library’s construction process would be the major topic of the meeting this year;

— Unanimously agreed to refinance outstanding serial bonds from a $21.5 million 2010 project in order to get a lower interest rate — 1.7 percent instead of 3 percent;

— After a lengthy discussion, unanimously agreed to sell 6.6 acres of land that the district owns in Hadley, New York near Sacandaga Lake, which was once used for science-centered field trips. “We haven’t used it for decades and have no plans to use it,” said Sanders. The district purchased the property in 1975 for $1,320.

The board’s discussion centered on the Realtor handling the sale and the Realtor’s fee, which is set at $2,500. The property is to be sold for no less than $20,000. The board authorized Sanders to handle any negotiations;

— Reviewed a school calendar for 2016-17 with 180 instructional days and four superintendent’s conference days. Board member Christopher McManus, saying he was from a family with two working parents, asked that school start on Sept. 6, the Tuesday after Labor Day, when a conference day is scheduled instead. He said, since summer programs have ended in August, it would be difficult for families to get coverage on Sept. 6.

Wiles noted extra days help with the capital construction project and said the change would have to be approved by the teachers’ union.

Toward the end of the meeting, a parent, Bridget Scally, praised McManus for his stance. She works in court and said, “Last time I brought my son to work, he got freaked out by guys in orange jumpsuits with shackles”;

— Accepted a bid from Northland Transportation — the only vendor of the 10 that were solicited to respond — for $445 a day to provide a bus and driver to transport homeless students to school. Asked by board President Allan Simpson if it would be cheaper to do in-house, Sanders said it would but said there were no drivers available to make the extra run. “Right now, we don’t have an applicant pool,” he said;

— Heard from Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Demian Singleton that Haemin Hwang, a Guilderland High School sophomore, had an art exhibit on Domestic Violence displayed at the Guilderland Public Library in February (see related photo);

— Heard congratulations for Dylan Schmidt, a Guilderland junior, whose photographic image was accepted as a finalist in the Photographer’s Forum 36th annual High School and College Photography Contest. His image was selected out of 14,000 international submissions and will be published in the annual Best of College and High School Photography 2016. This is the second year in a row he has been a finalist; his image will be judged now in a final round for first through fourth place;

— Learned that the Farnsworth Middle School Math Counts team came in second of 17 teams in the Feb. 6 regional competition. The team — Amy Chen, Brock Cottle, Bryan Guo, Ian Zhang, Joanna Chen, Sam Chen, Kevin Huang, Jeffrey Li, Aneesh Muppidi, and Kenny Yamashita — will participate in the state competition in March;

— Heard congratulations for physical education teacher Tamara Bryngelson-Eppard who received a $500 grant with which she purchased Drums Alive kits with giant balls placed on buckets that let kids exercise as they drum. A video of her class cardio drumming posted on the Altamont Elementary School Facebook page — https://goo.gl/zi0Fha — went viral. The grant was awarded by Capital Zone Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance;

— Learned that Guilderland High School librarian Bernie Bott will speak about guided inquiry at the spring conference for the Section of School Librarians. Bott recently made a presentation to the school board about the program, which encourages students to pursue deep research in a single matter of interest to them;

— Learned that work created by Guilderland High School junior Theresa Weimer in her graphics design class was selected for a student exhibit, “The Power of Me,” to promote positive messages that combat bullying. Her work will be displayed at Proctor’s Theatre in Schenectady;

— Heard from Wiles that a “terrific team” of students, teachers, board members, and administrators met with Senator George Amedore, Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, and staff from Assemblywoman Catharine Nolan’s office to lobby for restoration of Gap Elimination Adjustment funds, more Foundation Aid, and a review of how the tax levy limit is calculated. She reported that Fahy’s optimism on reviewing the levy limit had faded since she visited the board, and that Amedore was enthused about GEA restoration.

“Our students really made the points heartfelt and sincere,” said Wiles;

— Heard from Wiles she attended a meeting of the Governing Board of the American Association of School Administrators in Phoenix, which focused on “two big topics” — setting a federal legislative agenda, and defining the buzz phrase “college and career readiness” so that it is not just narrowly based on test scores but rather fosters “well-rounded students”; and

— Met in closed session to discuss two topics — firing someone and hiring someone.