KEARNEYSVILLE, W.Va. — The Jefferson County Board of Education and Chamber of Commerce members held their official ribbon cutting ceremony for their new Bus Maintenance and Operations Facility in Kearneysville earlier today.
The new facility is an upgrade from the previous building’s 5,000 square foot area, to a 52,000 square foot pre-existing facility with six bays for buses and one more bay for other vehicles.
President of the Jefferson County Board of Education, Scott Sudduth, is proud that the new facility will be able to accommodate more room for mechanics at no cost to taxpayers’ money.
He explained, “We were able to use the benefit of the impact fees that the County Council has had the vision to enact, as along with table game referendum funds.”
The facility cost about 4 million dollars – Sudduth says that’s half as much as the cost of building a new one from scratch.
Superintendent of Jefferson County Schools, Dr. Bondy Shay Gibson, said during the ceremony that this will allow them to work together with James Rumsey to provide internships for prospective mechanics.
“Large engine mechanics is often a lucrative field. Our ability to have this facility and have mechanics who can then supervise and support those kids in their internship will allow them to get out and make connections. You could go to work in Blue Bird and make $45 an hour as a mechanic – that’s a great job out of high school.”
She is also excited about the larger freezer provided by the facility for the schools, and said that they can now take advantage of more deals that will save the schools money on food.
“We actually sat down and calculated everything we bought over the last three years and what we what have saved if we had this extra storage space. It came out to a little over $75,000 over three years.”
John Statz, a Preventative Maintenance Mechanic for the Jefferson County bus garage says the extra bays will help them immensely.
Statz said, “A lot of the mechanics would have to do two or three jobs at a time, and there was only room to bring one bus in. So the other two had to be worked on out in the elements.”
Both speakers agreed the upgrade was vital because the service workers are the face of the community, and deserved to have a facility that reflected their worth.