The cost of maintaining Wareham Public Schools' aging bus fleet is forcing the Transportation Department into deficit, and with a proposal to purchase new buses quashed, School Committee Chair Geoff Swett says the district needs a plan.

Swett has asked Selectmen Chair Steve Holmes and Finance Committee Chair Frank Heath to resurrect the town's Transportation Action Committee, formed in January and charged with determining the safest, most cost-effective way to transport the district's students.

"The urgency comes from the fact that we are doing such a good job of maintaining our buses that it is costing us a lot more, and we are now predicting a deficit ... for the overall budget for transportation for fiscal year 2012," Swett told the School Committee on June 27.

Fiscal year 2012 wraps up on June 30. If a deficit remains, Town Meeting voters will have to approve a transfer of funds to fill the gap... "and that would be an uncomfortable situation," Swett said.

It is unclear where that funding would come from, especially with the town struggling with an already cash-strapped budget.

Next year's deficit "could be even larger," Swett cautioned.

Despite meeting for several months, as spring Town Meeting approached, the Transportation Action Committee had not made a decision on many looming questions -- including whether the town should continuing operating its own bus fleet or outsource the operation to a private vendor.

Citing an immediate need for buses, the School Department proposed that the town fund the purchase of four new buses with a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion -- an increase of property taxes above the annual 2½ percent cap for a fixed period of time.

Though ultimately allowing a Proposition 2½ override (a permanent property tax increase) and debt exclusions for other School Department needs to head to a July 25 special election, the Selectmen did not OK the bus proposal.

"The effort ... to bring the purchase of four buses to town voters was denied," Swett told the School Committee in explaining why he hoped the Transportation Action Committee would reconvene. "We therefore have to go to a plan, and I've forgotten the letter I have associated with this [plan]..."

School Committee member Cliff Sylvia offered a letter: "Z."