Overall, a little more than $16 million was approved by the board for other projects as well, including low-emission trucks at the ports and either retrofitting or replacing highly polluting construction equipment with newer models. The school bus funds will be distributed in relation to Prop B, which states that the Air Quality Management Districts within the state will cover 85 percent of the cost of a replacement CNG school bus. Previously, the school district would have had to make up the remaining 25 percent, approximately $25,000. This new round of funding will now cover $10,000 of the remainder.

“A lot of school districts, as you can imagine, have reported that their budgets would not allow them to cover even $25,000 of the cost,” said AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood. “This will reduce their required contribution in order to get a new CNG bus.”

The school bus portion of the funding has already been distributed to school districts in the Southern California area, with eight school district receiving additional funding. A majority of the monies — $2.6 million — will be going to Los Angeles Unified School District. The money for LAUSD was previously approved to cover CNG infrastructure costs in December 2008.

“This action basically allows the $2.6 million to be re-directed from infrastructure to the matching funding for the buses,” said Atwood, adding that it would cover the remainder costs of 260 CNG buses.