TEA cuts funding for new school bus seat belt law
Texas Education Agency budget cuts are drastically decreasing the amount of money set aside for equipping new school buses with seat belts. Texas legislators and Governor Rick Perry approved the law making those seat belts mandatory in 2007. When Perry signed the measure, he said it "will not only save lives, it will give parents peace of mind every morning their children leave their home for school and climb aboard a bus."
The state law requires all new school buses purchased today or afterward to be equipped with three-point seat belts. Now only $3.6 million of $10 million allotted for the program is slated to be used. The money was supposed to be available to reimburse school districts in the coming fiscal year.
All state agencies have been ordered by Gov. Perry to cut 5 percent from their budgets during the current two-year spending cycle. TEA spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe told the Associated Press that the agency had to cut something, and officials felt it was better to cut a program that hadn't started yet.
Lawmakers approved the seat belt measure after a 2006 accident killed two students. A chartered school bus was transporting 23 soccer players from West Brook High School in Beaumont, it overturned, killing two girls and causing numerous injuries to others on the bus. The bus was not equipped with seat belts.
Steve Forman of Beaumont, whose daughter was injured in that accident, told the Dallas Morning News , that some officials in the TEA "have attempted to derail the program by targeting its funding and by creating loopholes for some districts to circumvent the law."
Parents, he added, "should not tolerate this conduct. We call on TEA to make this funding available."
Sen. Eddie Lucio, a Democrat from Brownsville who pushed the legislation, said at a Capitol news conference, that the TEA needs to re-examine its priorities. "TEA has clearly forgotten who they work for - the parents of Texas."
The 2007 law made compliance by school districts contingent on funding from the Legislature. The law however doesn't require that seatbelts be installed in old buses.
Other Sources:
West Brook crash families' web site
