I-Team: Lawmaker defends school bus camera law

In a state riddled with financial woes and taxpayers feeling like the state is squeezing every dime out of their pockets, why would the state legislature enact a law that passes millions of dollars in potential state and local revenue into the pocket of a private company?

That's exactly what happened in 2008 when lawmakers passed the School Bus Safety Enforcement Act.

The law allows cameras to be installed on the exterior of local school buses to help catch drivers committing one of the most serious traffic violations on the books: illegally passing a school bus.

Written into the law is a revenue breakdown that gives 75 percent of every fine to the company providing the cameras and monitoring service, leaving the state and municipalities to split the remaining 25 percent.

Since the bill was passed, six Rhode Island communities have installed exterior school bus cameras, generating $1,312,894 in fines.

Receiving $984,670 of that money is SmartBus Live, the company that provides the service to all six communities.

That's a hefty chunk of cash, compared to the $164,111 that went to the state and the remaining $164,111 that went to local communities participating in the program.

State Rep. J. Patrick O'Neill, who sponsored the original 2008 bill, said he doesn't see it as a gift to the company.

He said that because the company installs and monitors the cameras for free, the revenue breakdown was included in the law to protect local communities and to make sure the state gets its piece of the financial pie.

"If the owner of the company gets chummy with somebody who's a town manager in a town in Rhode Island and says, 'I'll make this a little better deal for you', I see it as a safeguard. Those were in place so the municipality and the state don't lose any more money," said O'Neill, D-Pawtucket.

But does it block cities and towns from looking for another company and comparing prices?

"That's the other side of that argument," O'Neill said.

When the I-Team looked up similar laws allowing cameras on school bus exteriors in other states -- like Virginia and Connecticut -- contract bargaining was left up to each municipality.

Lawmakers in Connecticut mandated 20 percent of all fines collected under the bill go to the state, with 12 percent of each fine going to a special transportation fund and 8 percent to Connecticut's general fund.

"We're based here in Rhode Island. Our goal is to make a bus safer and smarter, genuinely," said Thomas O'Connor, the CEO and co-founder of SmartBus Live.

SmartBus Live is the only school bus digital monitoring service in Rhode Island, and it holds all six contracts in the state. It's part of a larger investment company called Americore Enterprises, which the I-Team determined is registered in Delaware, a state known for its corporate-friendly environment.

"Delaware, because we were planning on being in multiple states. The ease of Delaware allows us to operate more easily in other states without having to have separate corporate structures in other states," O'Connor said.

O'Connor told I-Team the SmartBus Live does pay corporate taxes in Rhode Island. He said his company's main focus is safety not revenue.

O'Connor said his company has yet to turn a profit in Rhode Island and that the reimbursement was not determined by his company.

"But actually, that was the cost reimbursement that was determined by the legislature so that they can get the program onto the school budgets at a time when school budgets can't afford it. This program doesn't cost anybody anything, and it has actually created incremental revenue back to the cities themselves in a time when they need it," O'Connor said.

As for O'Neill, he maintains the inspiration behind the law was safety not money.

Several school departments the I-Team spoke with said the financial breakdown in the law prevented them from signing up for this service because it was the city or the town -- not the school department -- that would be getting the money.