After the Iran War, a gallon of diesel cost $6.37 in Arizona on October 19, according to AAA. A year ago it was $3.59. That is about 77% more, and school districts that run diesel buses are paying it out of budgets that were set months ago.
The Deer Valley Unified School District, which had about 32,300 students in 41 schools in 2024-25, increased its budget for this fiscal year by around $500,000, just over 14%, mainly because of diesel, spokesperson Brittany Sutton told Axios. "We continue to monitor fuel prices and staffing needs closely, as additional increases could place further strain on the transportation budget," Sutton said.
Gilbert Public Schools is spending an extra $8,000 a week on diesel, Pluribus News reported.
In the Cave Creek Unified School District, fleet supervisor Ken Doss usually orders about 7,000 gallons of diesel a month for 24 buses, Cronkite News reported. At AAA's statewide averages, that much fuel would cost about $44,600 today, compared with about $25,100 a year ago. Districts buying in bulk may pay a different price.
Cave Creek is combining routes, tracking every bus by GPS to watch mileage, and using its gasoline buses less, since they get about 14 miles a gallon and its diesel buses about 5. "It's caused us to really look at every little detail of routes," Doss told Cronkite News. The district also raised what it bills schools for field trip buses. "A lot of other districts have really cracked down on field trips," he said.
Janelle Brabec, Cave Creek's lead bus driver, told Cronkite News the fuel bill also makes it harder to raise driver pay and hire new drivers, at a time when districts already struggle to fill those jobs. Districts compete with delivery and logistics companies for people with commercial driver's licenses, Axios noted.
Jim Migliorino of the Arizona Association of School Business Officials said districts may have to give something up. "So they could have to forgo an expense to be able to afford the increased fuel cost," he told Cronkite News.
Arizona districts are not alone. In a May survey of 188 school officials by AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the Association of School Business Officials International, and the National Association for Pupil Transportation, 40% said their districts had consolidated routes, 25% had cut routes, and 8% had made students walk farther to bus stops. Two-thirds said their state does not provide transportation funding that rises with fuel prices. Diesel was averaging $5.62 nationally in August, when allk12 looked at how diesel prices were squeezing school bus budgets, and it has kept climbing since.
Those changes land on families, said Peter Mannella of the National Association for Pupil Transportation. Fewer routes can mean more parents driving children to activities, or bus stops farther from home. "It starts to affect kids and families, which you know you'd rather not do," he told Axios.
Sources
Axios Phoenix: Arizona school districts grapple with war-induced fuel costs
Cronkite News: Arizona schools diesel prices (October 6, 2026)
Pluribus News via Arizona Capitol Times: School districts grapple with higher fuel costs
AASA, ASBO, and NAPT: Impact of Diesel Costs on District Budgets (May 13, 2026)
AAA: Arizona average gas prices (diesel, October 19, 2026)
Enrollment from allk12's analysis of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data, 2024-25.
