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Rockland County Is Seeking To Hide Details of Contract While Stipulations for Contracts In Other Counties and School Districts Are Accessible Via A Google Search
By Tina Traster
While questions swirl over both the practical and economic efficacy of the BusPatrol program, Rockland County has obstructed RCBJ’s ability to review the terms of the contract between the county and BusPatrol, a a private company based in Lorton, Virginia, which equips school buses with stop-arm cameras.
Though some public officials on school boards and in municipalities across the nation are reexamining the controversial BusPatrol ticketing program, Rockland County has been unresponsive to the public’s concern that the program’s technology is overzealously entrapping motorists and that the adjudication process is long and confusing.
In response to RCBJ’s recent FOIL for the contract and other data, the county produced a heavily redacted version, blacking out every reference to how the finances work on a 2023 contract the county signed with the company. The FOIL response provides basic boilerplate language of the contract but omits administrative and technology fees the county pays from its share of citation revenue. It also blacks out the revenue sharing split, though the county has claimed that the division is 55/45 percent in BusPatrol’s favor.
RCBJ is appealing the FOIL production to secure additional information.
Although some Rockland County data is available through a 2024 state report BusPatrol filed with the New York State Assembly, which RCBJ reviewed, the county refuses to make public the contract details, asserting the terms of the agreement are protected by “trade secrets.” However, the terms of agreements between a host of other towns and school districts with BusPatrol is readily accessible through Google searches. A review of five contracts reveals the language from contract to contract is nearly identical, though the revenue splits vary.
The contracts reviewed contain a “confidentiality clause” BusPatrol uses to shield its contract terms from public disclosure. However under New York State FOIL, a company does not have the right to designate what’s considered public information — that’s a matter for the courts. This challenge was tested and rejected in Pennsylvania by LehighValleyNews under the “Right To Know” clause, which is similar to New York’s FOIL.
In three contracts between BusPatrol and school districts in New York and Pennsylvania, the revenue split is 60/40 in BusPatrol’s favor. However, in the case of Allentown School District in Pennsylvania, $50 is taken off the top of each $300 ticket, which is then split to support police administration of the citations and to fund a School Bus Safety Grant Program. On top of that, $85 per bus is deducted monthly from the school district’s 40 percent revenue share for “technology” fees, and additional fees can be leveled if there is damage to or loss of bus equipment, according to the contracts. While Rensselaer County similarly splits revenue share 40/60 in BusPatrols’ favor, the county pays $185 per bus monthly for technology fees.
In contrast to Rockland’s agreement of 45/55 in BusPatrol’s favor, the City of Glen Clove has a 45/55 split to the city’s advantage.
How Much Is Rockland Raking In & For How Long?
It is difficult to assess how much the county rakes in on the taxpayer-funded program — and at what point it might be under water if the number of tickets issued continues to dramatically decrease year over year. Also many motorists ignore the tickets. The county refuses to answer any questions related to extra technology and administrative fees. It will not reveal what it costs to have the sheriff’s department evaluate the AI videos and the amount of time required for county attorneys to prosecute the citations in traffic court.
Rockland County officials say the program, which began late 2023, led to the issuance of more than 45,000 violations in less than two years, but recorded a 30 percent decrease in offenses from 2024 to 2025. In 2024, there were 24,986 citation issued in the county. In 2025, there have been 19,563 to date, a 23 percent decrease year-over year, according to the county.
Based on a report BusPatrol is required to submit annually to the New York State Assembly, the company collected $3,073,000 from paid tickets in Rockland in 2024, and $1,996,218 was “distributed” to the county. From the $1.99 million, fees for “technology and administration” ate up $1,009,930, netting the county $986,288 or about 32 percent of the collected revenue from the citations. BusPatrol is charging Rockland County roughly $100,000 per month for technology and administration fees. The data from 2025 is not yet available but if there is a 23 percent decrease in ticket citations, it stands to reason that the revenue intake is far less.
What the county does not reveal is what it costs to keep the program going with staffing hours from both the Sheriff’s department reviewing tens or hundreds of thousand or videos, local court fees, and the county attorney’s office.
The 2024 state report submitted by BusPatrol shows that nearly 90 percent of contested tickets in Rockland were dismissed in traffic court in 2024.
Tickets for a first offense are $250; $275 for a second offense; and $300 for a third within 18 months. As of year-end 2024, there were 1,109 stop-arm cameras on Rockland’s school buses. A “school bus safety program” ticket, gathered from data on a stop-arm camera, is a civil citation issued to the registered owner of a vehicle that passes a stopped school bus with its red lights flashing. The citation is not a moving violation. It does not add points to your driving record, and it doesn’t affect insurance.
On a recent Thursday morning, Rockland County sent two attorneys from the county’s office to prosecute about ten tickets in Nyack Justice Court. It is unclear why two attorneys were needed to appear in court, where at least two motorists who received citations did not show up, another ticket was adjourned, and three others were adjudicated – with at least one being dismissed because the motorist argued that the flashing yellow light on the stop arm never appeared before the stop sign swung out. Bus drivers are required to manually initiate the yellow flashing lights before the bus stops, but bus drivers are not required to attend the hearings and give evidence of compliance.
Motorists who’d received tickets in Rockland County were upset about the program, saying BusPatrol technology often catches a motorist with just a second or two to stop safely before the bus’s stop sign appears. Two motorists in court said they’d been waiting nearly 18 months to have a hearing on a contested ticket. These complaints are common in other jurisdictions around the nation where the media has highlighted deficiencies with the program’s technology.
Pennsylvania State Senator Says BusPatrol Technology Needs a Reboot
It is complaints such as these that caught the attention of State Senator Jarrett Coleman (R-Bucks/Lehigh), who held a telephone town hall on Jan. 13 inviting residents of Bucks County and Lehigh Valley to discuss the program after local news reports in LehighValleyNews shed light on many of the program’s problems. Callers conveyed their distress about being ticketed with such steep fines, long waits for hearings, and the prevalence of certain “hot spots,” where many tickets are being issued.
At the time, Coleman said he would review the legislation that led to the creation of the program.
On Feb. 18th, the LehighValley News reported that Coleman had met with a BusPatrol representative and visited a local police department to observe how tickets were processed. In the Lehigh Valley, at least nine school districts — including Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton — contract with BusPatrol for school bus stop camera enforcement.
“In my time there, nearly half the violations should never have been issued in the first place,” said Coleman, according to LehighValleyNews reporting. “So the idea that there’s no bad tickets is absolutely false. I’ve seen multiple bad tickets. It’s blatantly false.”
The state senator said the high number of flawed citations suggests the review process is failing to reliably distinguish legitimate violations from those that should never result in a ticket to motorists. He said the number of errors suggests the program needs to be re-evaluated.
Coleman raised the issue that motorists are having to make the choice between stopping a car to avoid passing a bus or getting rear-ended – a common complaint among those who are ticketed. He said BusPatrol has the technological tools to ensure compliance from bus drivers — including GPS data, speed tracking and video timestamps — that would satisfy the distance of the required state law and give oncoming traffic time to stop safely.
The senator told LehighValleyNews that an expected software upgrade would display how many seconds amber lights are active — data that could be used to calculate distance traveled and ensure legal compliance “They have the tech to be able to make the program ensure it issues only tickets that should be issued. They have a lot of great technology, but the system is not working the way it should.”
The legislator is seeking a follow-up meeting with BusPatrol’s technical team, but said the company has 90 days to communicate whether it’s willing to make changes. If not, he said the state might need to take action to define the new standard legislatively.
BusPatrol Angry Over Loss of Contract; Says It Would Issue More Tickets Than Its Competition
The BusPatrol program is proliferating in municipalities nationwide, though not without controversy in some Long Island, Pennsylvania and Florida districts and counties. The company, which has the program operating in 500 jurisdictions, has a strong marketing pitch and a well-funded team of lobbyists, for its stated mission to make the onboarding and offloading of school children safer.
In 2025, the Nevada legislature voted to install cameras on school buses after completing a pilot project in Las Vegas that documented violations. The school bus bill passed and was signed into law.
BusPatrol was one of the vendors that responded to a request for proposals from the Clark County School District to equip its 2,000 bus fleet with cameras. But the district chose a competitor, Verra Mobility, which runs red-light cameras, speed-enforcement cameras and bus cameras across the country, according to reporting by KTNV, a local television station.
The news station reported that in response, BusPatrol sent a 29-page letter from the Las Vegas law firm Bailey Kennedy. Among the complaints: That Verra failed to disclose suspended or canceled programs in other jurisdictions; that the company has no experience with very large fleets like Clark County’s; that it failed to disclose pertinent information in its bid documents and that the staff who rated the bids were biased in favor of Verra. The letter says if the district had adhered to competitive bid requirements in law, “BusPatrol would have scored higher and would have been recommended for the contract.”
Verra pushed back on the allegations.
The district responded with a three-page letter, defending its decision, saying, “CCSD has determined that the protest lacks merit and does not identify any material flaws in the evaluation process, scoring or award decision, which were conducted in full compliance with applicable procurement regulations and the terms of the RFP. CCSD views the aggressive efforts to overturn a competitive award — through unsubstantiated challenges that seek less favorable revenue-sharing terms and contractual conditions for the District — as highly inappropriate.”
One of the key differences between Verra and BusPatrol proposals is the revenue split: Verra offers the school district more revenue, with a 75%-25% split, while BusPatrol’s offer was for 60%-40%, according to the news report.
But pushing back, BusPatrol claimed “it will issue more tickets, ” according to local television news reports. It is unclear why the company makes that assertion.
