UPDATE After several weeks of discussions and debate, Westport’s Board of Education tonight cleared the way to approve a request by the school’s transportation director to put three-point seat belts in 13 of the district’s school buses starting next year.
Some school buses will have seat belts beginning next January. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo
The request made by director Sandra Evangelista would total $120,900, with more than half of that amount being budgeted for the 2017-18 academic year to retrofit seven buses, and the remaining six buses for 2018-19.
While most board members seemed in favor of the proposal, the actual vote will come next week as part of the 2017-18 budget.
According to Elio Longo, school business administrator, each of the retrofits would cost about $9,300.
School Board Chairman Michael Gordon was fully supportive of the request, saying that while the buses were currently safe, the three-point seat belts would make them safer.
The school board is expected to vote on its finalized $115.35 million operating budget for next year, a 2.44 percent increase over the current year, at its meeting next week.
Meanwhile, the board did approve the use of cameras on buses that will catch cars passing stopped buses with students getting on or off. That was not part of the budget vote as there is no outlay for the district.
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This story has been updated to clarify formal approval of the seat belt initiative will come next week and to add approval of cameras on buses..
