Current New York state law mandates that municipalities must partner with districts to fund stop-arm cameras on school busses to capture motorists who illegally pass stopped buses. 

"We wanted to do this as quick as possible and as efficiently as possible," said Jason Garnar, (D)  Broome County Executive.

In districts like Windsor, there are five separate municipalities that make up the district. Same goes for Susquehanna Valley, where there are students living in Conklin, the Town of Binghamton, Kirkwood and others. Their superintendent says having these cameras on all of the district's buses will be a huge asset. 

"We want to have any tool possible available at the disposal of drivers, and to take that burden off them, to try to be watching, and keeping track, and writing down license plates, when really their focus is on those individual students," said  Windsor Central School District Superintendent Jason Andrews.

Broome County is making the move to fund them outright to take the burden off of the municipalities. There are roughly 500 busses in Broome County’s districts.

Since they’re in the early phase of reaching out to companies to purchase the cameras, they weren’t clear on an overall cost, but expect to “more than make up for the cost” through the $250 fine imposed on drivers who illegally pass school busses.

It’s estimated that 1,000 people passed Broome County busses last year, and that’s on the low end.

"We really think a lot of people are going to stop doing that. They're going to think twice, because it's not going to be up to the bus drivers to report this, it's automatically going to get reported. It's going to be on video. You're going to get a pretty big fine in the mail," said Garnar.

The county is currently working with vendors to determine how much the cameras will cost. It's expected that the fines will cover the cost in the long-run.