The Clark County School District is poised to equip its buses with cameras to catch on video — and then ticket — motorists who break the law by blowing by the vehicles as they load or unload students.

At $250 or more a pop, these tickets are expected to generate an estimated $40 million in annual revenue, the district said in an email.

Pilot program data shows that motorists often fail to stop for school buses that have their lights flashing and “stop arms” extended. Yet this behavior, while risky, rarely results in tragedy.

In the last school year, six children in the U.S. were killed in or around the loading or unloading areas of a school bus, according to the National School Bus Loading and Unloading Survey. All were struck by the bus itself and none by a passing vehicle.

In the past five years combined, vehicles passing school buses killed a total of nine children nationwide, according to the annual survey compiled by the Kansas State Department of Education.

Whether school bus camera programs reduce accidents is unclear. But they are known to have caused aggravation in some jurisdictions, from bogus citations to problems challenging fines.

Jay Beeber with the National Motorists Association claims such programs have more to do with revenue than safety.

“It’s a cash grab,” said Beeber, executive director of policy for the advocacy group. “It’s about jurisdictions — schools districts, sometimes police departments, certainly the vendors — seeing a cash cow.”

He said some people pushing for camera programs have good intentions but added, “If you’re talking about a reduction in fatalities, how do you reduce fatalities from zero?”

The Clark County School District stated in an email that it “does not track data regarding the students who are injured or killed as a result of vehicles passing a stopped school bus while students are boarding or exiting.” The state’s Office of Traffic Safety also does not have this data, representatives said.

In August, a vehicle struck a 13-year-old boy in the southeast valley as he crossed the street after getting off a school bus with its lights flashing. The boy’s left shoulder and arm were broken, his right knee and ankle sprained, according to an arrest report by the Metropolitan Police Department.

The motorist, Yarla Valeriano-Perez — who left the scene but later returned — pleaded guilty to a felony hit-and-run charge and is scheduled to be sentenced next month, court records show.

Asked why the camera program is a priority for the school district, Superintendent Jhone Ebert said, “We want to make sure that our kids and families and everyone is safe, and so even one incident around our school bus is one too many.”

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration states, “While the number of actual pedestrian crashes caused by stop-arm violations is low, the potential for injury or death is high.”

But do camera programs make a difference?

In its guide titled “Reducing the Illegal Passing of School Buses,” the safety administration also states, “Whether stop-arm camera enforcement programs are effective in reducing illegal passing of stopped school buses has not been widely studied to date.” It notes that data from companies administering the programs shows a low level of repeat offenders.

Last year, Nevada lawmakers passed a bill that allows school districts to use camera footage as the basis for ticketing motorists for unlawfully passing school buses. They heard testimony from representatives of BusPatrol, which had conducted a pilot program, that 30 Clark County School District buses recorded video evidence of roughly six violations apiece each day.

The school district provided data to the Las Vegas Review-Journal showing that as of Feb. 12, officers had issued 64 citations this school year, more than the 51 citations issued in all of the 2024-2025 school year. No citations were based on video evidence obtained during the pilot program.

Under the new law, a 30-day public awareness campaign must be conducted before the camera program begins.

“If the initial 30-day public awareness campaign does not change driver behavior, the program is estimated to generate an initial revenue of approximately $40 million, to be distributed between CCSD and the awarded vendor,” the school district wrote in an email. “We anticipate this revenue to steadily decline year-over-year as driver behavior improves. Our hope is that revenues decrease, as that would mean drivers are better following the law and students are safer on our roads.”

The initial revenue estimate is the equivalent of 160,000 citations of $250 each, the minimum fine for a first offense.

Under Nevada’s law, the revenue must go toward the camera program, the vendor, transportation infrastructure or programs that increase student safety, or the labor costs for enforcement of violations.

Nevada’s law allowing the use of cameras requires law enforcement to review the footage before issuing a citation.

Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said that after the legislation was passed, he was contacted by Henry Blackeye, the Clark County School District’s chief of police, regarding what resources the Metropolitan Police Department would be providing.

“And he (Blackeye) said, ‘Well, they passed this law, and you guys are the ones that have to do this, and then the money goes towards the school district.’ I just laughed,” McMahill said in an interview with the Review-Journal. “I said, ‘Yeah, buddy, I’m not giving you any resources towards this.’”

The school district told the Review-Journal that its officers would be reviewing the footage.

“We anticipate the need to hire additional School Police officers for this task, though these officers will be paid out of the revenue generated from the citations and their salaries will not have an impact on CCSD’s General Fund.”

It did not provide an estimate of the time or cost for reviewing footage.

After his conversation with Blackeye, McMahill reviewed the state law and again spoke with the school district’s police chief.

“I said, ‘I don’t know if the law addresses the issue of jurisdiction for you guys. I think that’s going to be a problem,’ meaning that the school police don’t necessarily have jurisdiction in a number of the neighborhoods that these buses are going to be dropping kids off in,” the sheriff said.

The school district told the Review-Journal that its officers “have jurisdiction applicable to District functions, including the transportation of students to and from school.”

After Florida authorized school bus camera programs, motorists last year complained about receiving bogus citations.

In April, the sheriff in Miami-Dade County suspended its program, citing “significant errors.” Although sheriff’s deputies were supposed to examine video of each suspected violation, an investigation by the Miami Herald and The Tributary found that faulty citations weren’t being weeded out.

For instance, citations were issued to motorists on the opposite side of a raised median, who in both Florida and Nevada aren’t required to stop for a school bus with lights flashing.

In August, a federal lawsuit filed in Florida’s Polk County alleged that the bus camera program there functioned as a “cash cow” and violated state law by failing to provide a proper method for drivers to dispute their tickets, according to Tampa Bay 28, WFTS-TV.

The Clark County School District said violations here would be appealed “in the same manner as any other traffic violation.”

Program vendors in Miami-Dade County and Polk County were, respectively, BusPatrol and Verra Mobility. The Clark County School District ranked the two companies highest among the firms that submitted contract proposals to administer its camera program.

After initial scoring, the two leading vendors gave presentations. After this phase, evaluators recommended that the district award its contract to Verra.

The school board is scheduled to vote on the contract at its meeting next Thursday.

It will consider a two-year contract with Verra, with five one-year options for renewal, “for the provision and ongoing support” of the camera system.

The contract is on the board’s consent agenda, items voted on in one fell swoop and typically without discussion unless the majority of members agree to consider the item separately. The agenda lists the district’s cost as zero dollars.

“Should the Board of School Trustees not approve this award, the District will not benefit from increased safety around bus stops and the revenue generated from citations,” the agenda item states.

However, BusPatrol, which has the largest market share, sent the district a notice of protest on Dec. 22.

The protest states that Verra misrepresented and omitted key facts in its presentation and that the district provided Verra with “undue favorable treatment during the evaluation process.”

In a statement to the Review-Journal, Verra wrote, “Claims made by our competitor are without merit and appear intended to delay or undermine a procurement process whose sole purpose is to enhance student safety.”

The district stated in a response to BusPatrol on Jan. 14 that the company’s “accusations of bias and favoritism in the evaluation process are entirely unfounded and without merit.”

It also stated that “Verra Mobility’s proposal provides a substantially more favorable financial return to CCSD compared to BusPatrol’s.”

BusPatrol proposed that the district receive 60 percent of the ticket revenue; Verra proposed 75 percent. However, under Bus Patrol’s proposal, the company would pay law enforcement’s costs for reviewing the footage.

Better ways?

The National Motorists Association’s Beeber suggests there are better ways to improve student safety than the camera programs, such as finding safer locations for bus stops and extending the stop arms on buses so they are more visible to drivers.

Safety agencies suggest taking a multifaceted approach.

The National Transportation Safety Board has urged states to permit stop-arm cameras on school buses. It recommends minimizing the use of bus stops that require students to cross the street.

And it encourages parents to talk about bus safety with their children, including teaching them to stay at least 10 feet away from the curb and, after getting off a bus, to look left, right and left again before crossing the street.

Contact Mary Hynes at mhynes@reviewjournal.com or at 702-383-0336. Follow @MaryHynes1 on X. Hynes is a member of the Review-Journal’s investigative team, focusing on reporting that holds leaders and agencies accountable and exposes wrongdoing. Review-Journal staff writer Spencer Levering contributed to this report.