ELKHART — The start of school may still be a couple months away, but school leaders are starting to work on next year's budget. At the top of their list of concerns is high gas prices.

Elkhart Community Schools are facing a possible 40 percent hike in diesel fuel prices for their buses. The school system says that means possible cuts in other areas.

This year, they set aside $600,000 to run the buses, and they're bracing for a big fuel cost increase starting in January.

“And it’s not final by any stretch, but the moment we're looking at $1 million as what we anticipate to be the minimal need that will have for diesel fuel to operate our bus fleet for the next year," explained Doug Hasler with Elkhart Community Schools.

Because of the increase, school officials are considering several ways to save money.

“We’re looking at everything including consolidation of bus routes,” Hasler said. “That's a very large undertaking — we do have 150 some buses. We have 13,000 students scattered across our school district.”

Bus drivers say they are well aware of the spike in diesel fuel costs and say they are willing to help the school system find a way to deal with any shortfall in fuel funding.

"We’re concerned about it just as much as everybody else because we don't know with our jobs and that if they're going to have to put routes together," said driver Judy Brown.

“We have to be flexible, to make the adaptations that we can, to keep everything going smoothly,” added driver Bob Fink.

In addition to possibly consolidating bus routes, school officials are looking at a couple of other options to save money. That may include raising the cost students pay to go to athletic events and looking at how long buses are allowed to idle.