The Board of Selectmen designated four old and unusable school buses as "surplus" at its Tuesday, March 20, meeting, clearing the vehicles for sale as scrap for $475 dollars each, for a total of $1,900 dollars.

The Selectmen OK'd the motion following a presentation from Transportation Manager Jeff Tatro.

There was some debate as to whether the quotes given for the buses were lower then they should be, with Selectmen Steve Holmes mentioning that a car he knew about went for $600 to $700.

Tatro responded that if he and his department were to remove the glass from the bus, clean the parts, and sell the bus parts for scrap themselves, they might get more money for the parts. But that would also cost the town to pay department employees to do the work.

The quotes given for the buses include moving them from the property they are parked on.

The money from the sale will go into the town's general fund, according to Town Administrator Mark Andrews.

The buses have been unused since Tatro became transportation manager in 2010, he said. They are missing radiators, alternators, and other parts.

The state of the school bus fleet has been a hot topic in recent months as town and school officials work to determine whether it is cost effective to continue operating an in-house bus fleet or whether the operation should be outsourced to a private company.

The cash-strapped town is struggling to replace the school district's aging buses on a regular basis. The average year of the district's regular sized, 77-passenger school buses is 2002 and the average number of miles is approximately 99,000. For special education buses, the average year is 2003 and the average number of miles is 150,000.

In other town business:

• The Board of Selectmen appointed Teddy O'Rourke, resident of Wareham and owner of Anchor Diving Services of Wareham, Bourne, and Marion, as an associate member of the Marine Resources Commission.
• The town has received a grant worth $6,000 from the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety for the "Click It or Ticket" and the "Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over" programs of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• The Board of Selectmen approved Café Soleil's application to change its hours to 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday through Saturday. Café Soleil, located on Main Street, will no longer open on Sundays.
• The Board of Selectmen approved the application from the Dick Melloni Youth Foundation for the use of town roads for the foundation's bicycle ride scheduled for Sunday, September 16.