Katy ISD will spend $1.86 million to buy 33 vehicles to serve the district’s police department and operations staff.
This vehicle purchase, which trustees approved at the May 12 board meeting, will replace an aging fleet that averaged 14.5 years old, district officials said.
The current replacement is compensating for multiple years of underinvestment due to pandemic-related supply chain delays, Chief Financial Officer Chris Smith said at the May 5 work study meeting.
The district expects to see improved reliability, lower maintenance costs and greater efficiency for their vehicles, Smith said.
The funding
The purchase will be funded entirely from interest earnings on the district’s November 2023 bond, rather than from the general fund, Smith said. The bond has gained $7.6 million in capital project interest earnings so far
“We've ... kind of ignored replenishing our old white fleet and adding new white fleet as needed,” Smith said. “So this makes up for a couple of years of neglect.”
The purchase won’t impact bond obligations or other planned projects, which remain fully funded, Smith said.
Why now?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Smith said the district routinely amended its budget each June to use unspent general funds for vehicle replacements, relying on a short summer procurement window.
However, Smith said post-pandemic supply chain disruptions extended delivery times beyond the constraints of the general fund's fiscal year, which ends in August.
As a result, vehicle replacements were delayed for several years and are only now being addressed, Smith said.
This purchase is expected to stabilize the fleet's condition, and future replacement cycles will likely return to a more typical scale, avoiding another bulk buy of this magnitude, Smith said.
Next steps
The district will begin placing orders immediately, aiming to receive the new vehicles by December, Smith said.
The use of interest earnings will allow flexibility to complete the purchase after the 2024-25 fiscal year’s end in August, Smith said.
