Broward drivers who illegally pass a stopped school bus will soon face $225 fines thanks to a new camera enforcement program.
After a two-year delay, the Broward School Board approved contracts Tuesday that will enable a school bus camera program to start Aug. 10 when students are set to return from summer break.
The cameras, which are installed on the buses, are designed to capture video of motorists who drive past stopped school buses that have extended their stop arms to allow children to enter or exit the bus. School district police officers will review the camera footage to look for violations.
State law has long made it illegal to pass a bus with an extended stop arm, but in the past, enforcement relied on law enforcement officers seeing a driver do it, greatly limiting the number of tickets issued.
Superintendent Howard Hepburn said the program will cost the school district nothing to operate and will allow it to collect about $8 million to $12 million a year.
“I’m impressed by the way that it has finally come together. I know it’s been a long time coming,” board member Maura McCarthy Bulman said during Tuesday’s meeting.
The program faced numerous hurdles over the past two years.
The school district first sought a vendor in March 2024, and a selection committee recommended BusPatrol, a Virginia company used in several other Florida counties, in July 2024.
But the program was delayed, in part due to problems in Miami-Dade County, one of the first Florida counties to implement bus cameras.
The Miami-Dade program flagged more than 400 paid violations per day and generated about $19.5 million in the first six months of the program, the Miami Herald reported. That’s the wording and number the Herald reported but I changed it to 400.
But an investigation by the Miami Herald and The Tributary found that many drivers who were ticketed by the school district’s bus safety program argued they had done nothing wrong. They said they were legally driving on the opposite side of a raised median from a stopped school bus but still got a $225 ticket. The investigation also said the motorists were not able to get hearings when they tried to appeal.
School Board member Dr. Allen Zeman discusses a School Bus Infraction Detection System before voting to approve the item during a Broward County School Board workshop at the Kathleen C. Wright Administration Center in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (Amy Beth Bennett / South Florida Sun Sentinel)
A Miami-Dade School District audit, released in February, found that drivers contested 8,172 tickets, but the program lacked a process for court or administrative hearings, leaving those cases in limbo.
The Miami-Dade Police Department was the initial agency that enforced the program, but it was replaced by the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office in January 2025. Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz suspended the program a few months after taking office amid complaints.
The Miami-Dade program was relaunched in May, with the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office dismissing unresolved cases and making changes related to enforcement and appeals.
“We’ve done our due diligence over the past year to really analyze all the contract languages, all the issues that many school districts around the country have had,” Hepburn said after Tuesday’s meeting, “and our legal team have done a good job in making sure those issues aren’t in our current contract,.”
Another challenge Broward schools faced was finding a law enforcement agency to review the camera footage. Under state law, an agency that serves the entire county must conduct the reviews. In Broward, that’s the Broward Sheriff’s Office, but it declined to devote its own personnel. So the district entered into an interlocal agreement with the Sheriff’s Office that will allow school district police to review the footage instead of BSO personnel.
That agreement was approved Tuesday, along with the BusPatrol contract and an agreement with the state’s Division of Administrative Hearings to hear appeals.
Hepburn said BusPatrol will pay for police officers to review the video, as well as the cost of appeals hearings. BusPatrol will then keep $140 of every $225 ticket issued, while the district gets to keep $85. Under state law, the district’s revenues can be used for student transportation safety enhancements and initiatives, as well as school bus driver recruitment and retention.
Board member Allen Zeman said he would have preferred to see the district keeping a larger share of revenues from citations. But he said he thinks the program is a great idea.
“This is going to create a greater enforcement of an existing law,” Zeman said. “You’re not allowed to pass the bus with the arm out. Everybody knows that, but they still do it. It’s very unsafe.”