School District Turns to Diesel After Attempt to Convert Bus Fleet to Electric Proves Disastrous

Affluent liberals will do nearly anything to parade their own perceived moral virtue, including fleecing their neighbors at gunpoint.

In the end, however, the only thing on parade is tragicomic liberalism.

On July 25, Megan Davey Limarzi, Inspector General of Montgomery County, Maryland, issued a blistering memorandum regarding her office’s (OIG) investigation into Montgomery County Public Schools’ catastrophic management of an electric bus contract, which has cost taxpayers millions and forced MCPS to rely on diesel buses.

The sad story began with the usual virtue signaling.

“On February 23, 2021, as part of its commitment to sustainability, MCPS announced it was replacing 326 diesel school buses with electric school buses,” Limarzi wrote.

That ambitious purchase came at a cost of $168,684,990.

According to 24/7 Wall St., Montgomery County ranks as the 3rd-wealthiest county in Maryland with a median household income of $125,583.

In the 2020 election, President Joe Biden won Montgomery County by a staggering 60 percentage points, per Politico.

In other words, these are exactly the sort of affluent liberals who worship the god of climate change and would adopt even the most authoritarian remedy if it meant that they could feel good about saving the planet.

Alas, Limarzi found that the electric bus contractor “did not deliver any of the buses expected in FY2022 through FY2024 by August 1st as required by the agreement’s delivery schedule.”

Nor will the contractor meet said delivery goal for the 2024-25 school year.

With that in mind, MCPS should have assessed fees, as it would have done under a diesel bus contract. But it did not do so, which cost an additional $1.8 million.

This led Limarzi to conclude that MCPS had utterly fleeced taxpayers.

“MCPS’s failure to hold the contractor accountable to the terms of the contract and their decision not to include provisions to offset incurred expenses has led to millions of dollars in wasteful spending,” the local inspector general wrote.

Furthermore, MCPS ignored the electric buses’ chronic mechanical failures.

“Mechanical and/or charging infrastructure issues resulted in buses not being able to run routes on more than 280 instances from February 10, 2022, through March 31, 2024,” Limarzi wrote.

And yet, despite the contractor’s repeated failures to service the buses, MCPS inexplicably assessed no fees. That decision cost taxpayers another $372,100.

Incredibly, lost fees alone cost taxpayers more than $2.1 million.

Meanwhile, MCPS has spent another $14,749,919 on 90 diesel buses to cover the shortfall. Thus, in light of the original purchase, the total cost to taxpayers has approached $200 million.

In sum, the OIG investigation “substantiated that MCPS’ reluctance to enforce the terms of the agreement and failure to include penalties to offset incurred expenses has led to millions of dollars in wasteful spending and drastically hindered MCPS’s ability to meet its environmental goals.”

Though drafted in no-nonsense language, Limarzi’s memorandum highlighted the pseudo-religious hysteria at the core of the climate change narrative.

First, to showcase their “commitment to sustainability,” MCPS authorized an outrageous original outlay of $168,684,990.

Then, when they failed to receive the electric buses on time, they did not assess a fee. Better to leave one’s neighbors holding the bag than to undermine one’s beliefs by rebuking an EV contractor.

Furthermore, the buses that did arrive suffered nearly 300 operational issues over a two-year period. Again, though, better to make taxpayers foot the bill than to entertain questions about electric buses’ reliability.

Meanwhile, taxpayers must pay their taxes — at the point of a gun if necessary. That is tragicomic liberalism on parade.