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Audit finds weak vetting and revenue controls in Miami-Dade school bus camera program; operational review deferred
Summary
An internal audit found the district did not document sufficient vetting of Bus Patrol America LLC before contracting and identified gaps in reconciliation of ticket revenue; auditors recommended enhanced pre-contract vetting and contractual annual independent audits of the vendor. Objective 3 (operational effectiveness) was deferred pending third-party information.
Elvira Sanchez, district director (CPA, CFE), presented an internal audit to the Audit and Budget Advisory Committee on the school bus stop-arm camera program, saying the review covered procurement and revenue use but deferred the program's operational effectiveness test because third-party records remained incomplete. "The program was in effect from 05/08/2024 through 04/17/2025," Sanchez said, noting the latter date was when the sheriff temporarily suspended the program.
The report flagged a lack of evidence that the vendor and the program were sufficiently vetted before Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) entered a contract. "We found a lack of evidence that bus patrol and the overall program were sufficiently vetted prior to MDCPS entering a contract with the company," Sanchez told the committee. The audit noted Bus Patrol America LLC marketed a "turnkey" service that included coordination with law enforcement and courts but found the district and partner agencies did not sufficiently document interaction and readiness before rollout.
On revenues, auditors said program expenditures for the period 05/08/2024–06/30/2025 were not materially out of compliance with Florida Statute 316.173, but they identified weaknesses in monthly revenue reconciliation. The auditors wrote that no routine reconciliation or examination of vendor detail reports was performed to verify gross revenue reported to the district and warned this raises "an increased risk of revenue loss resulting from errors or underreported revenue." As a remedy the report recommended that future contracts for third‑party ticketing vendors require contractual provisions for annual independent audits of vendor operations related to ticketing and remittance.
Treasury staff described operational limits to verification. "We get a detailed spreadsheet on how it's calculated," Ron Steiger, treasury, said, "but there's no real clean way to independently verify that unless we go back to bus patrol and actually check to make sure their data they're giving us is accurate." Committee members urged stronger contractual safeguards and certification mechanisms to reduce reliance on vendor-supplied counts.
The superintendent and administration told the committee the procurement complied with applicable Florida purchasing statutes and school board policy and that the district conducted capacity and vendor searches before awarding the contract. The administration agreed with the auditors' recommendation to build in stronger vetting and to require independent vendor audits going forward.
Committee members also cited prior implementation issues in other jurisdictions. The auditors referenced contested tickets and backlog problems reported in counties in Pennsylvania and New York, and members said that information should have been considered in vetting.
The committee voted to accept the audit covering objectives 1 and 2 and to continue work on objective 3; the vote was recorded as unanimous. Auditors said they had received roughly 25% of the external information required to complete objective 3 and will present a supplemental report when testing is complete.
