{"id":86367,"date":"2026-10-28T16:48:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=86367"},"modified":"2026-10-28T16:49:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T20:49:04","slug":"polk-county-approves-8-8m-purchase-of-50-new-school-buses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/10\/28\/polk-county-approves-8-8m-purchase-of-50-new-school-buses\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County Approves $8.8M Purchase of 50 New School Buses"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Polk County School Board voted last night to buy 50 new school buses for $8,863,110. The vote was unanimous (7-0).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All 50 are Thomas-built. Forty-two of them are standard 77-passenger buses, and the other eight are lift-equipped, for students who need them. They are being bought through the Florida Department of Education bid, and the money comes from local capital funds, not a grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district says this is part of keeping its bus fleet on about a 10-year rotation, replacing older buses with safer, more reliable ones. The new buses are expected to take about a year to arrive, so they should start showing up on Polk County roads next fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a lot of new buses headed to our neighborhoods over the next year or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Source: Polk County School Board meeting record, October 27, 2026)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Polk County School Board voted last night to buy 50 new school buses for $8,863,110. The vote was unanimous (7-0). All 50 are Thomas-built. Forty-two of them are standard… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzEwXC84NzI5OTg5MjVfMTAyNDE2NzQzMzQ3MjkwNTFfODA2MzM3MDM5NDIzODQ2NjAwX24ud2VicCIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgQ291bnR5IEFwcHJvdmVzICQ4LjhNIFB1cmNoYXNlIG9mIDUwIE5ldyBTY2hvb2wgQnVzZXMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.VPqPA_eiS0FvtwqupXfugawXKqEn6C99F1ADHHFpLsEMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzEwXC84NzI5OTg5MjVfMTAyNDE2NzQzMzQ3MjkwNTFfODA2MzM3MDM5NDIzODQ2NjAwX24ud2VicCIsInR4dCI6IlBvbGsgQ291bnR5IEFwcHJvdmVzICQ4LjhNIFB1cmNoYXNlIG9mIDUwIE5ldyBTY2hvb2wgQnVzZXMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.VPqPA_eiS0FvtwqupXfugawXKqEn6C99F1ADHHFpLsEMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[15750,15298,18662,18663,18665,18664,15926],"class_list":["post-86367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-education-funding","tag-local-government","tag-polk-county-school-board","tag-school-buses","tag-student-transportation","tag-thomas-built-buses","tag-transportation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86370,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86367\/revisions\/86370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}