Budget cuts may eliminate bus monitors

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - The Ocean State is more than 350 million dollars in debt, and the number is growing. One of the governor's proposed cost-cutting measures is to eliminate bus monitors.

The law was put in place after three children were killed in school bus accidents in one year.

This year's serious state budget crisis is triggering all sorts of tough decisions at the State House, as Rhode Island's leaders figure out ways to get by with less money.

One of the ideas, is to no longer require school bus monitors. And it's setting off a big fight.

According to Governor Don Carcieri and Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, this is an idea whose time has come and gone.

To save money, they both want to stop forcing local school districts to hire school bus monitors, and let the districts decide for themselves.

"Over these many years we have mandated bus monitors on runs that the districts have said 'Wait a minute, we've got some practice with this now. We know the dangerous runs, we know the ones that need a monitor. You don't need to command us to put monitors in every bus', " says Education Commissioner Peter McWalters.

Rhode Island started requiring school bus monitors after six-year-old Vanessa Pendergast was killed in a school bus accident in Middletown back in 1985.

"The first thing that went through my mind is, 'Oh my god, what are they thinking?' said Sophia Pendergast, Vanessa's mother.

Julie Mott, Vanessa's sister, along with Sophia Pendergast, are fighting to keep bus monitors. They argue the number one cause of school bus accidents is driver distraction.

"If the mandate's lifted, when a child dies, I know that I have a clean conscience," says Julie Mott, a school bus monitor advocate.

"Children will die. They died before the monitor bill legislation was in place. And they died at the rate of one per year," adds Pendergast.

"The return has been astronomical. What would we have spent over litigation, and a number of other things over the last 22 years had we continued killing one child a year? We've got 22 kids alive right now because the monitors have been there, " adds Mott.

"This program works. Let it alone, let children arrive to school and arrive at home alive," continues Pendergast.