FRENCHVILLE – Every school day between 6:30 and 7 a.m., six SAD 33 school buses take to mid-St. John Valley roads picking up most of the 334 students attending classes at three district buildings.

The buses crisscross the 20-mile width of the district, going over hills, stopping and starting. School buses get an average of eight miles per gallon of fuel.

For a small school district like SAD 33, the bill for that transportation quickly becomes a big chunk of money.

The financial picture worsens when taking into account the fuel needed to keep three school buildings warm, especially from December through February in northern Maine.

The crunch this year is made worse by the energy crises in the country, with heating oil and diesel fuel costs at record levels.

“It’s devastating,” SAD 33 Superintendent Fern Desjardins said Friday. “It definitely means trouble, because this is something we could not budget for.

“We need to provide transportation, and keep the buildings warm,” she said. “We will have to find ways to trim costs.”

A year ago, the school district cost for diesel fuel was about $1.47 per gallon. It’s $2.22 this year. The cost may go higher.

When the SAD 33 school budget was created in the spring, the district considered the expense of $20,600 for diesel fuel in 2004-2005. In the new budget, the allocation was increased to $21,000, just $400 more.

Before the start of schools, Desjardins paid $40,000 to have the heating fuel tanks filled to capacity. At the time, the district paid $2.04 per gallon. The street cost, albeit higher than what the school would pay, was $2.60 per gallon this week.

She’s left with only $23,000 in her budget for the rest of the year, and she knows it won’t make it.

There are no state or federal programs to help out, she said.

“These huge increases are not what I expected at all,” she said. “There will be repercussions.”

They need to find places to cut costs in a school budget where many costs are fixed. Salaries are negotiated, health care costs are negotiated, and several contracts were made final before the crunch came.

She said the school district needs to look at school bus runs to determine whether one could be cut and to consider lowering thermostats, especially at night when no one is in the building.

In a former energy crunch, SAD 33 had coal-burning furnaces installed in the Dr. Levesque Elementary School and Wisdom High School. She said they will be considering what is needed to restart those systems.

The school district also includes the St. John Valley Technology Center, where juniors and seniors from three school districts attend vocational and technology classes.

Coal could cut the heating costs by half. “We owe it to the taxpayers to look at that,” she said.

She said that late buses for extracurricular activities and sports may have to be considered for cuts.

“We don’t want to do that, because that directly affects the students,” she said. “It’s making me nervous because there is not much room to move.

“I’m not comfortable with all the ramifications these increases have on the budget,” she continued. “We are looking to make some changes now, because it could get worse.”

SAD 33 has an overall budget of $3.5 million. More than $100,000 of it is for energy costs, including $80,000 in the overall heating budget and $21,000 for diesel fuel.

“We spend a lot of money for transportation and heating,” she said. “It could mean cuts in programs and services.

“It’s not what we want to do,” she said.