{"id":126293,"date":"2026-02-28T21:35:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/126293\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T21:35:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:35:24","slug":"buspatrol-appeals-ruling-ordering-release-of-allentown-school-bus-camera-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/126293\/","title":{"rendered":"BusPatrol appeals ruling ordering release of Allentown school bus camera contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 BusPatrol America, the private company that operates Allentown\u2019s school bus stop-arm camera program<\/a>, has filed an appeal in Lehigh County Court after Pennsylvania\u2019s Office of Open Records ordered the release of its full contract and related records with the Allentown School District.<\/p>\n

In a petition filed Aug. 15, BusPatrol asked the court to overturn the July 15 decision by the OOR<\/a>, which ruled the district must provide an unredacted copy of the contract and related documents to LehighValleyNews.com within 30 days.<\/p>\n

The OOR concluded there was no evidence showing the information was protected under Pennsylvania\u2019s Stop-Arm Law or the state\u2019s Right-to-Know Law exemptions for trade secrets and confidential proprietary information.<\/p>\n

The OOR wrote in its final determination, \u201cthe withheld records and redacted information must be provided to the Requester.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of Open Records is really holding these agencies, and in this case, their contractor, to the standards that exist in the law,\u201d Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said at the time of the decision \u2013- the second such ruling in favor of LehighValleyNews.com after it sought similar records through the Allentown Police Department<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Background on the records request<\/p>\n

Under the program, a school district is responsible for partnering with its local police entity to oversee use of the camera system, which is designed to detect when drivers pass a school bus that is stopped with its stop-arm extended.<\/p>\n

BusPatrol owns the technology, which includes cameras and license plate readers installed on participating school buses.<\/p>\n

The company also provides administrative support to participating municipalities and school districts, it acknowledges in the filing, including mailing violation notices to alleged violators and processing the payment of fines.<\/p>\n

The $300-per-citation violator-funded model covers the program expenses, with revenue divided among BusPatrol, the school district and police, with some revenue allocated to the state’s School Bus Safety Grant Program.<\/p>\n

BusPatrol\u2019s appeal stems from Right-to-Know requests filed in April by LehighValleyNews.com.<\/p>\n

The requests sought the contract entered into between BusPatrol and the district for the School Bus Stop Arm Enforcement Program, as well as revenue received through the program in 2023, 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

The Allentown School District initially denied access to the financial records and provided only a redacted version of the contract, citing the Stop-Arm Law and BusPatrol\u2019s claims of confidentiality.<\/p>\n

In July, the Office of Open Records disagreed, finding the information was not exempt, and ordered its release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law requires the agency to prove, by preponderance of the evidence, that the records that were requested are exempt under the Right-to-Know Law, and if they don’t meet that standard \u2014 and here they clearly did not \u2014 the records are public,\u201d Melewsky said.<\/p>\n

BusPatrol\u2019s arguments in the appeal<\/p>\n

In its Aug. 15 filing, BusPatrol argues the ruling from the Office of Open Records was wrong on several fronts. The company said:<\/p>\n

The information in the contract relates to BusPatrol\u2019s \u201csystem, services, and pricing, including revenue sharing, technology, fees, invoicing, and payment\u201d and should be protected as \u201cconfidential proprietary information.\u201dReleasing it would \u201ccause substantial harm to BusPatrol\u2019s competitive position\u201d because competitors could use the details to undercut future bids.The Office of Open Records wrongly concluded the contract was a \u201cfinancial record\u201d subject to full public disclosure, even though the revenue-sharing model means money is received and disbursed by BusPatrol, not directly from or to a government agency.<\/p>\n

BusPatrol also maintains the Stop-Arm Law protects certain records from disclosure because they were \u201cprepared under\u201d or \u201crelated to\u201d the law\u2019s enforcement provisions.<\/p>\n

The company is asking the court to reverse the Office of Open Records or, at minimum, allow additional evidence and arguments on why the contract information should remain confidential.<\/p>\n

Executive Editor Jim Deegan said LehighValleyNews.com will answer any challenges to the Office of Open Records\u2019 ruling in Lehigh County Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment contracts and the amount of money they yield for, in this case, a vendor and the Allentown School District, are well within the public\u2019s right to know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 BusPatrol America, the private company that operates Allentown\u2019s school bus stop-arm camera program, has filed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,59001,32165,59003,59002,59004,59005,59006,12324,59007],"class_list":["post-126293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-buspatrol-allentown-school-district","tag-buspatrol-america-llc","tag-buspatrol-cameras","tag-buspatrol-lehigh-county-court","tag-how-do-buspatrol-cameras-work","tag-lehighvalleynews-com-vs-buspatrol","tag-office-of-open-records-buspatrol","tag-pennsylvania-school-bus-stop-arm-law","tag-school-bus-stop-arm-allentown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}