The Lauderdale County Board of Education approved the purchase of a new bus at its meeting Thursday night.

The bus will cost about $82,500, said Tim Moore, the district’s transportation director.

Moore noted that cameras have been installed on all 97 of the bus routes. 

The board in January purchased 75 cameras systems, each featuring a front camera, a middle camera and a back camera. 

The district is looking at adding GPS and Wi-Fi capabilities to the buses. The system would allow videos to be downloaded instead of saved on a hard drive.

Moore also discussed the possibility of reducing bus routes to cut transportation costs next school year. 

One example would be reducing the routes for Northeast schools from 32 to 25. Moore said the proposal includes 45 students on each bus, with each bus route lasting no more than 45 minutes. 

Moore said the average fuel cost per year is about $432,176. If the district reduced 10 routes, it would save about $239,114, he said.