JBER is buying four Alaska-winterized buses to carry kids in its youth program

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is buying four new buses equipped for Anchorage winters to carry school-age children in its youth program, under a $565,095 contract the Air Force awarded Monday.

The order is for three 14-passenger buses and one 44-passenger bus. The specifications for the base's Child and Youth Program call for "safe, reliable, year-round transportation for school-age children within the sub-arctic climate of Anchorage, Alaska."

Each bus must come with an engine block heater, heated mirrors, heavy-duty batteries, extra insulation and undercoating against road salt, plus three-point shoulder belts at every passenger seat. The big bus needs at least three 50,000-BTU heaters and coolant protected to at least minus 34 degrees. The smaller ones must be set up so program staff can drive them without a commercial driver's license.

Bidders warned that the original Dec. 18 delivery date was tight. One wrote that the next small-bus chassis would be 2028 models and that big-bus chassis wouldn't be built until around the middle of next year; another said larger buses often take more than a year. The Air Force kept a December delivery for the three small buses and gave the big one until June 2027. It turned down requests to quote only the small buses, to split the order and to swap in a diesel engine.

Bukkehave Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, won the contract, which the award notice says was set aside for small businesses. The buses are paid for with nonappropriated funds rather than money appropriated by Congress.