Voters during the last election allowed the city’s public transit system to keep going. Now city commissioners are ready to sign the contract that will actually keep the buses on the road.

In the process, they’ll be signing up for a bit more risk, too.

Commissioners at their meeting this evening are scheduled to approve a new five-year contract with California-based MV Transportation to continue running the day-to-day operations of the city’s bus system.

“I think we’re getting a fair deal,” City Commissioner Rob Chestnut said of the contract, which totals $15.8 million over the five-year period.

But it will be a different deal. Unlike the current contract that requires MV Transportation to use its own money to purchase diesel fuel for the buses, the new contract requires the city to purchase its own fuel — about 150,000 gallons a year. In other words, the city is no longer protected from rising fuel prices.

Commissioners said they fully expected the new contract would place the risk of rising fuel costs on the city. Under the current contract, the city’s fuel costs essentially are capped at $1.60 per gallon for diesel fuel, with MV making up the difference.

“We understood that the concept of us being able to buy fuel at that rate is probably history,” Mayor Mike Dever said.

The new contract also puts the city on the hook — for the first two years of the contract — for any major repairs that must be made to the buses. The current contract requires MV to pay for repairs.

“That change is a reflection of the age of our fleet,” Chestnut said.

All the buses in the city’s current fleet are reaching the end of their expected life. The contract assumes that after two years, the city will have replaced about half of the fleet with new buses.

The new contract calls for MV to be paid $2.9 million in 2009, up from a projected $2.8 million in 2008, which includes fuel costs. The 2009 payment does not include fuel costs. City staff members have estimated it will cost about $670,000 to buy diesel for the buses, although those estimates were made when diesel fuel was above $4 per gallon. It is now about half that.

In total, operating costs for the transit system are expected to go up by 12 percent to 24 percent in 2009, depending on the price of diesel fuel.

Other details included in the contract:

• MV has the ability to renegotiate the contract if the city decides to use smaller buses or alternative-fuel buses. Because MV is responsible for paying for maintenance costs on the buses, the company wants the ability to change its pricing if the city decides to use lighter-duty buses that would require more maintenance.

• MV will provide the same number of hours of service as they do today.

• The city has the ability under the deal to significantly change routes to better coordinate with the Kansas University bus system, which also is operated by MV.

• The city will be able to continue to use federal and state grant funding — as long as it remains available — to pay for part of the operating costs. Currently, the city receives about $1.9 million per year in state and federal grants.

• The city is estimating that it will have to borrow about $595,000 from the city’s general fund to cover a projected shortfall in funding in 2009. The shortfall has been expected because the new sales taxes voters approved won’t begin until April. The $595,000 will be repaid to the general fund over a three-year period.

Commissioners meet at 6:35 p.m. today at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets.