Audit: No one told 5,400 drivers their Miami-Dade school-bus tickets were dismissed

Faulty paperwork last year led to the blanket dismissal of thousands of violations from school-bus cameras in Miami-Dade, but the cited drivers never got word they were off the hook, according to a new audit on the suspended safety program.

Before the BusPatrol camera program was suspended last year for doling out questionable violations, the private company running the operation was also mailing out violations with faulty information. Those errors — which had some tickets showing a lower fine than the $344 required by Florida law and others bearing the wrong ticket numbers — resulted in a Miami-Dade judge wiping out 5,400 violations last spring that drivers were fighting in court.

The school-system audit made public this week said drivers never got notice of the good news because nobody mailed them notices that the judge ruled their way. (People who want to check to see if they have a citation in the Miami-Dade court system can search their names on the agency’s website. The bus-camera violations that were mailed out last year do not enter the court system until they’re converted to citations.)

The findings from the school-system audit add to the list of shortcomings hanging over the troubled safety program. The report also highlights the tensions that still exist within the complex web of legal, educational, law enforcement and for-profit entities that are all needed to process the violations that start with cameras attached to school buses. The BusPatrol program was designed to rapidly flag drivers who illegally pass school buses that are stopped to pick up or drop off children.

After an investigation by the Miami Herald and the Tributary in Jacksonville, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz suspended her agency’s required review of camera footage linked to the violations. That halted the camera program altogether because Florida statutes require law enforcement review of footage if a violation is issued.

Now, the school system needs Cordero-Stutz’s blessing to resume the bus-camera program, but it looks like the two sides still have some issues to resolve.

On Tuesday, Cordero-Stutz’s office issued a statement refuting a recent school system memo that had said there was a deal for the Sheriff’s Office to help process outstanding bus-camera violations that had been issued before last year’s suspension but are currently stalled in court.

“The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office must express its dissatisfaction with the statements indicating that an agreement has been reached with this office,” read the statement released Tuesday. “The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office remains willing to engage in discussions should a formal proposal be presented for consideration through the appropriate legal and administrative processes.”

BusPatrol, the Virginia-based company that won the camera contract in a no-bid deal with the school system in 2023, also is pointing fingers in explaining why it didn’t notify drivers that their violations had been tossed in court.

“BusPatrol did not proceed with outbound dismissal notifications absent confirmed direction from the government stakeholders,” the company said in a response to auditors. “BusPatrol will implement a formal notification process upon stakeholder direction, as it does with other partners across the country.”

BusPatrol’s camera-generated ticketing system lasted about a year after its 2024 launch before the Herald and the Tributary investigation revealed the cameras were generating violations to drivers on the other side of a median from a stopped bus. Florida law does not require drivers to stop for a school bus if a raised median separates the two vehicles.

Cordero-Stutz suspended the program indefinitely in April after the Herald/Tributary report was published.

While no new violations have been issued since the suspension, thousands of drivers are still subject to fines from ones mailed out before the problems came to light.

While 5,400 drivers fighting their school-bus violations failed to get news of their legal wins, others could see their fines voided without even contesting their tickets, according to the audit.

The audit pointed out the school system is at risk of losing out on nearly $10 million in fine revenue because more than 40,000 uncontested violations were never converted to citations within the court system.

Converting to a citation is a key part of the legal process needed to collect a fine against a driver for a camera-generated violation. Florida law only gives a year for agencies to begin the court process against a driver facing a citation, leaving the legal status of those violations “uncertain,” the audit said. BusPatrol told auditors the initial delay in shifting violations to citations — which can mean license suspensions if unpaid — was part of an effort to show some leniency as people got used to the new camera enforcement.

Some school system leaders are ready to resolve the shortcomings of that system, end the finger pointing and get the camera program rolling again.

“Student safety is always our number one priority,” Roberto Alonso, a school board member, told the Herald on Tuesday. “We know we have issues with people violating the [bus] stop signs. We need an enforcement mechanism. We need to find the problems and find a way to get around them.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 5:00 AM.