As gas prices rise throughout Phoenix, school sports teams can breathe easy with continued and unchanged district stipends

April 28, 2022 2:30 PM MST

By Dexter Zinman

Central High School is like many other schools in the Phoenix Union High School District. It has baseball fields, a football field, a gym for volleyball and basketball, outdoor spaces for students and a sizable parking lot for teachers, parents and guests.

Another feature of this parking lot visitors will notice are several white buses, emblazoned with two bright red logos. The logo of the Central High School Bobcats, and the distinct PXU of the Phoenix Union High School District.

These are vehicles provided by the district to help different school groups to participate in off-campus activities, but school sports is one of, if not their biggest uses.

“Every campus has those vans,” said Evanna Santee, Central High School’s athletic director. “[They] are primarily used for athletics, field trips, and sometimes community outreach. Athletics has priority over anything else to use the vans.”

Having these buses and vans directly supplied by the Phoenix Union High School District is a great way for the district to help its schools and its students. But like every other vehicle in the parking lot, these buses and vans need gas to run.

Gas prices have risen across the country since the start of the 2021-22 academic year, and Phoenix is no exception. A spike in the spring of 2022 has been particularly noticeable.

According to an article from AZ Family, gas prices in Phoenix, “​​are now $1.49 per gallon higher than prices in 2021.”

Phoenix’s average 2022 gas price of $4.62 per gallon is also $0.37 higher than the national average of $4.25 per gallon.

As many residents of cities across the country have figured out, these rapidly fluctuating gas prices can force reevaluations and changes to how money is budgeted and divided amongst costs.

For example, the tank of gas used for driving to the home opener for high school girls volleyball in September of 2021 cost a lot less than the tank used for driving to senior night for boys volleyball in late April.

For these big buses that drive multiple school teams to multiple destinations every week, it doesn’t take much imagination to think about how high those gas costs can get. A high school who created a hypothetical bus and van gas budget in August or September might be scrambling now to add money to that fund.

Fortunately, this is not something the high schools of the Phoenix Union High School District have to do, as there is a detailed multi-step process for filling up the buses and vans that make sure the schools, (and any of their faculty for that matter), aren’t having to pay for gas out of pocket.

It starts with the drivers of these vehicles themselves.

Since at most schools the sports teams’ commutes are the most frequent use of these vehicles, many of the coaches of those teams are the ones who drive them.

“People have to be van certified before they can take those vans,” Director Santee said. “Anybody who works for the district can be van certified.”

That certification goes for the district provided the buses as well, not just the vans. Because most coaches at Phoenix Union High School District schools are employees of the district, that means they can drive their teams to events like tournaments and road games.

“Sometimes I’ll drive these guys. Not all the time, but sometimes,” Carl Hayden Community High School varsity baseball coach Jacob Greenberg said.

It also means they are sometimes the ones who will physically fill up the gas tank.

“If it gets low I’ll be the one filling it up, but I’m not paying for it,” Greenberg added.

“All of the vans come with gas cards,” Director Santee said. “Our employees are not paying for the gas. Gas cards are already in there. They’re provided by the district.”

Team coaches, as well as anyone else who drives the district-provided vehicles, have binders with them that walk them through how to use the gas cards. They are the first step in the process the district has created so that schools can get the most out of these vehicles.

“Once it gets to a certain quota, typically if it’s anything under half a tank to three quarters of a tank they ask us to fill it back up so the next team can use it with a somewhat full tank,” Central High School varsity baseball coach Randy Aguiar said.

Policies like this one are part of what can be found in the bus and van binders, as well as other policies from the schools and the district.

“From what I understand it’s the school,” Aguiar said of the half a tank and under policy. “I mean it could be [Phoenix] Union honestly, they probably relay it down through the administrative communication chain. But from our understanding they provide a rule book saying ‘if it ever gets here, do this do that.’”

Part of the responsibilities for the coaches who fill up the tanks are to get receipts from the gas stations they go to. The receipts are given to the school’s athletic departments, and from there they are passed on to the district.

“We usually send those receipts over monthly,” Director Santee said. “They use the card that’s in the binder, and then we just tell them to make sure they always get a receipt, because we have to keep those receipts and we have to send them over to district. Because they do monthly reports.”

The district has positioned itself as an entity whose role is to make the monotonous details of running a school (and in this case an athletic department) as easy as possible. The gas cards are only one way it does this.

Another major way is the in-district department called DSF, or District Support Facilities. This department is there for general car trouble, being available for schools to bring in the district provided vehicles if they are experiencing mechanical issues.

“Let’s say [someone] was to use the van, and then comes back and tells me that the engine light is on. So then we let Sergeant Hurt (Central’s JROTC representative) know, Sergeant Hurt will take it to DSF, leave it, then will pick it up and bring it back,” Director Santee said.

DSF acts as a bit of a catch all. It’s there for schools if they are experiencing car trouble with the district provided vans or buses, but schools can also use their services to fill up gas tanks as well.

“We can take the vans to get gas from any gas station here, but you can also fill them up at DSF,” Director Santee said.

All in all, it’s another service the district provides so that the school employees don’t need to financially worry while operating them.

“Even if there’s a situation where, let’s say, a vehicle is scratched or something, it still wouldn’t fall on the person driving it,” Director Santee added.

DSF can also be a service that acts as a backup for coaches in the event the gas cards do not work. As stated earlier, gas is something DSF can provide. Some school employees who fill up the district provided vehicles prefer DSF than going to a gas station.

“Our school’s pretty close to our district’s support service facilities, so I have easy access to get the gas there,” Carl Hayden volleyball coach Andrew Scott said. “So even if the gas card doesn’t work, fortunately I can make it to the facilities easy. There’s no card involved, I can just fill up the gas there.”

Scott is the head coach of the varsity girls volleyball team at Carl Hayden, but he also travels with the boys varsity team to road games. He’s had experiences on the road in a district provided vehicle in the past where having DSF as a backup option for gas was fortunate.

“I have tried in the past to do the card at a Circle K, and it’s always trouble,” Scott added. “So I don’t even risk it, to use my own money, I just go straight to the district facilities.”

Like many other employees of the district, Scott is unaware if there have been any changes made with the amount of gas the cards provide as prices have increased.

“It always seemed like it was just unlimited, like the card was an open access thing,” Scott said. “I’ve never seen anything about a limit or how much you can fill up.”

For this school year, which will be concluding in the coming weeks, the budget has been able to remain the same. The district has been able to get by on their initial gas budget for 2021-22.

Phoenix Union High School District representative Richard Franco assured that the gas budget for the district hasn’t needed amending this year, despite the recent city-wide and nation-wide price hikes.

“Most fueling is done at our District Support Facilities site, as we have a fueling station and purchase fuel in bulk. Prices have risen, but not to the level that one sees at gas stations around the city,” Franco said.

However, the district may have to make changes for the upcoming school year if prices continue to rise the amount they have.

“We have not modified the current-year budget, but if prices do not stabilize, there may be a need to evaluate the fuel budget for the 22/23 school year,” Franco said.

The Phoenix Union High School District has been able to provide adequate fuel for the vehicle it provides to its schools throughout the turbulent price fluctuation of the academic year. Although budget changes may have to take effect next year, as Richard Franco said, those changes would be happening on the district level.

Schools and school employees will continue to not have to pay for gas themselves. The gas cards and DSF will be there, and Phoenix high school teams will be traveling to road games with no worry.

The system is working as intended it seems, as school employees are not worrying about the financial details, they are simply getting their teams to their games. The chain of command is working. Everyone is doing their part. Reports are filed, receipts are shared, and the white buses sit ready in school parking lots with their tanks full.