BusPatrol offered to pay school districts for participation in Hempstead Town's bus camera ticket program, records show

The company that runs Hempstead Town's school bus camera ticket program offered to compensate at least two school districts to entice them to join the program, including a $1 million payment or a share of ticket revenue, according to district representatives and newly filed court documents.

The recent offers from BusPatrol America to the Hempstead and Baldwin school districts are unusual, compared with pacts with the many districts that originally signed on to the town program and got no money in exchange. They came after Newsday reported earlier this year that the town had issued more than 80,000 bus camera tickets in Hempstead, Baldwin and two other districts that had never agreed to participate in the program.

The revenue from those tickets, if paid, would be more than $20 million split between the town and BusPatrol.

By getting the school districts' authorization, the town and BusPatrol would potentially address one of the legal challenges against the tickets in question.

The documents showing the offers to Hempstead school officials were included in a motion filed Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Nassau County. The motion seeks an injunction that would temporarily halt school bus cameras from issuing tickets within the school districts that didn't agree to the program, including Lawrence and Valley Stream 13.

A judge on Friday is scheduled to hold a conference on the pending injunction request. The plaintiffs' lawyers are challenging the town's authority to issue tickets to their clients.

"It's been more than a year since we filed our suit, and the town is still issuing these exorbitant penalties for passing buses that aren't even participating in the program," said Martin Bienstock, one of the attorneys seeking the injunction, in an email to Newsday. "It's time finally for this to stop."

In trying to coax school officials in the Hempstead district, where the bulk of the 80,000 tickets were issued, BusPatrol initially offered $1 million, according to district spokesman Ron Edelson.

After the district rejected that offer, BusPatrol countered with a proposal that would have given Hempstead school district 10% of the net ticket revenue collected there, according to a proposed agreement filed with the injunction request.

The district also rejected that counteroffer. District officials, Edelson said, felt the sum wasn’t enough to justify the headache of a bus camera program that has been controversial with the public since its inception in 2022.

Shortly after Newsday's report on the 80,000 tickets, then-Hempstead Town Supervisor Donald X. Clavin Jr. demanded they be thrown out and Town Attorney John Maccarone wrote a letter to BusPatrol stating concern that the program was "potentially overreaching its legal authority."

In the months since, the town has neither voided the tickets nor paid back drivers cited in the nonparticipating districts. Maccarone later said BusPatrol found "no violations were improperly issued in the instances in question."

But around the same time, the newly filed court records allege that BusPatrol officials were working behind the scenes to get the nonparticipating districts to join the program.

The vendor offered Hempstead schools 10% of net revenue from the town's share of fines collected from bus camera tickets issued within the district's boundaries, according to documents filed with the injunction request. On May 1, Steve Randazzo, BusPatrol’s chief growth officer, emailed Hempstead school district counsel Anthony Fasano, saying "there is no school district across NY that receives 10% of the gross collected fines (or local government’s net proceeds) stemming from this program ..."

Newsday reviewed agreements among more than two dozen other school districts and the town, which show that no other school district participating in the program previously received any ticket proceeds.

Randazzo also offered that "although the mechanics are not perfectly ironed out, there would also be an opportunity to construct a grant towards school safety, scholarships, or other purposes deemed appropriate/permissible in the amount of $100,000."

Two weeks later, Fasano rejected the offer, emails show.

Edelson, Hempstead school district’s spokesman, said a similar proposal was submitted to Valley Stream 13, another district he represents that also does not participate in the town’s program.

Baldwin school district spokeswoman Mary Furcht told Newsday on Wednesday that the district also was asked by BusPatrol this year about joining the bus camera program, also offering a 10% cut of ticket revenue. Baldwin rejected the offer, Furcht said.

BusPatrol and Hempstead Town declined to comment for this story.

The plaintiff's attorneys allege BusPatrol attempted to retroactively secure the Hempstead and Lawrence school districts' approvals dating to 2022.

While the Lawrence school board initially approved a resolution to join Hempstead Town’s program in 2022, the document was never signed and executed.

As recently as November 2024, the district had a letter on its website stating the district "has not entered into any agreement with the School Bus Safety Program of the Town of Hempstead to issue summonses within the boundaries of the Lawrence Union Free School District" and that "summonses issued within the boundaries of the district are therefore void and cannot be upheld."

Records obtained by Newsday show that outgoing school board president Murray Forman signed the previously approved resolution in June. But at a July 29 meeting, the newly formed board voted to officially opt out of the town’s bus camera program, records show.

Heshy Blachorsky, the new Lawrence school board president, told Newsday this week that while the program "is great in intent, [and] the safety of kids is paramount, the fines seem excessive and the action seemed over the top.

"There is no legal basis for it," he said.