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Hernando County School Board plans to end bus tracking contract

 
The district says it hasn’t seen the promised benefits from a bus tracking system agreed to in December 2014.
The district says it hasn’t seen the promised benefits from a bus tracking system agreed to in December 2014.
Published March 10, 2016

BROOKSVILLE — Synovia Solutions' bus tracking system was supposed to provide big benefits to the Hernando County School District.

It would allow the district to know the locations of its buses and which students were on those buses, the company told the School Board before the board approved the contract in December 2014.

The system's computers would help reduce expensive idling time and diagnose mechanical problems. The system would make kids safer, protect the district from lawsuits and improve efficiency to the point that it would pay for its annual cost of about $61,000.

Unfortunately, the company has made good on few of those promises, Ralph Leath, the district's assistant transportation director, said at a board workshop Tuesday.

The system is plagued by balky computer tablets that are difficult for drivers to access and don't record required information, Leath said. In a recent test, the swipe cards that were issued to students and that are designed to track when they get on and off the buses, worked only 54 percent of the time.

The system's GPS devices are beneficial and could still protect the district from expensive lawsuits, Leath said. But, so far, he has been able to document only about $6,100 in savings, he told the board.

The district has spent about $8,000 for swipe cards and other equipment to get the system running but has not started to pay its annual fee.

The board unanimously voted at its Tuesday evening meeting to give the company formal notice of its dissatisfaction with the service. At that afternoon's workshop, the disagreement was not about whether to try to get out of the contract, but about how and when.

School Board attorney Dennis Alfonso said the contract requires 45 days' notice from the "customer" from the time the company is notified that it has failed to meet any of several benchmarks. That would include, he said, a promise that the cards will work 95 percent of the time.

Board member Susan Duval pointed out that Leath told the board the district had contacted the company with problems three times since August.

"How many more 45 days do they need?" Duval asked. "To me, they had their chances, and they didn't know what they needed to do."

Alfonso said his advice was conservative and designed to avoid a possible argument from the company that only the board, and not a staffer, could qualify as the "customer."

Four of the five board members agreed to follow his recommendation.

"Nobody wants to give them the extra 45 days," said Chairman Matt Foreman, "but it's the safe call."

Contact Dan DeWitt at ddewitt@tampabay.com; follow @ddewitttimes.