Wareham Public Schools superintendent Barry Rabinovitch and director of transportation Mary Jane Driscoll addressed concerns about the conditions of district school buses and necessary repairs at the Jan. 27 School Committee meeting.

Twenty buses had varying degrees of rust on beams connected to the frame underneath the vehicles, Driscoll and Rabinovitch said. The district owns more than 50 buses. When the vehicles were inspected by the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) in August, they were labeled "E.Q.," which stands for equipment quality, due to the rust. District mechanics developed a plan to repair the buses, and they were all given a passing inspection sticker.

Because school buses are inspected three times per year, an RMV inspector returned in December to inspect the buses again, but was not satisfied with the repairs as completed by the district mechanics, Driscoll said.

RMV communications director Ann Dufresne said the registry worked with the school district and the manufacturer of the buses to find an authorized repair shop.

Dufresne said that though the work done on the buses was deemed unsatisfactory, students riding the buses were never in danger.

"If there was the least bit of any potential for safety issues we would have taken the buses out of service and have no problem doing that," she said.

The average age and mileage of the buses in the district's fleet is seven-and-a-half years and 103,000 miles, Driscoll said. Like any vehicle, the older the buses get, the more rust they develop.

"Like many districts that are struggling under budget constraints, they have an older fleet and older fleets need more attention," Dufresne said.

The district is getting two new buses in the coming weeks to replace two of its older buses, Rabinovitch said. It will keep the older buses for as long as they pass inspection, to use when other buses are in for repairs.

As of Monday, nine of the buses with rust problems had been repaired, Rabinovitch said. Three buses will be sent to the shop each week until all are fixed.

The repairs cost between $1,000 and $6,000 per vehicle, Rabinovitch said, paid out of a "revolving account" containing revenue generated by the transportation department, not by money appropriated to school transportation during Town Meeting.