Does anybody know what the story is with these jokers?

http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Moodys-Downgrades-DCS-Bond-Rating-to-Junk-Bond-Status-422125923.html

I have a special hate for those cameras.

Dallas State Senator Rolls Out Bill to Kill Dallas County Schools

Besides low revenue from the cameras, I'm sure that Huffines' bill to do away with the agency altogether did not do much for their bond rating.

There was an article in the DMN last month which stated that DISD spends 5-6 times what FWISD spends per student on transportation.

(angry face regarding the waste -- not the effort to get rid of the agency)

So, there is a school district to which I pay taxes with a superintendent that doesn't actually run any schools???

What a waste of my tax dollars.

Do you guys not watch the local news in DFW? This has been all over the news for most of the last year. A lot of it really started up when it was discovered the huge amount of traffic violations by DCS bus drivers. Not only was it a safety issue that there were large numbers of bus drivers who were running read lights, etc, and there seemed to be little consequences for it once (meaning the drivers were not being reprimanded or fired), but it was a huge expense as well. And then all the rest of the financial issues being discovered seemed to follow.

By the way, DCS is not a school district. DISD and DSC are two separate entities. DCS primary reason for existence (at least in my understanding) is to provide busing services to the schools in Dallas County.

I don't watch TV, especially the news.

Thanks for the update.

From the article:

Quote:

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DCS hoped to recover its costs from collecting fines from drivers captured on the cameras running past school bus stop arms. But the ticket money collected lagged far beyond projections.

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So are they not collecting on tickets given to drivers running the stop arms (I assume when the school bus stop sign arm is extended) or are drivers simply not breaking the law? If its the former, haven't we seen that red-light cameras have been a boondoggle since inception? And its the latter, this is just another case where taxing or fining illegal or unwanted behavior makes for a poor long-term revenue stream. You're asking for diminishing returns! And fwiw, I very rarely see drivers blow past a stopped school bus with its lights on

tysker said:

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From the article:

Quote:

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DCS hoped to recover its costs from collecting fines from drivers captured on the cameras running past school bus stop arms. But the ticket money collected lagged far beyond projections.

---

So are they not collecting on tickets given to drivers running the stop arms (I assume when the school bus stop sign arm is extended) or are drivers simply not breaking the law? If its the former, haven't we seen that red-light cameras have been a boondoggle since inception? And its the latter, this is just another case where taxing or fining illegal or unwanted behavior makes for a poor long-term revenue stream. You're asking for diminishing returns! And fwiw, I very rarely see drivers blow past a stopped school bus with its lights on

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That is the answer. They were also hoping to sell the camera system to other school districts nationwide and it did not pan out.

go pick up today's DMN and read the cover story. lots of crooked stuff going on. Too many links between DCS and the company who sold them the cameras. very shady

It's becoming clear they didn't do much research, or even care at all about getting revenue from the tickets. A few members of DCS awarded a multi-million dollar contract to some buddies of theirs so they could benefit from it personally. Like everything else in Dallas, this screams total corruption.