Money concerns may delay Sullivan school bus student tracking plan

BLOUNTVILLE — Sullivan County school board members have long mulled over an idea to provide parents and guardians almost real-time tracking of their students on school buses. After all, if you can track an Amazon package out for delivery, why can't you track when your child is to arrive home or at school? But more importantly: Is the program worth the money when the upcoming budget year is projected to be tight? Recently, the board finally got an in-person proposal from a company that would track buses — although not in absolutely real time — and update the school system's bus routing. The matter may be on its April 2 meeting agenda. After the board's March 12 work session, member Michael Hughes, a proponent of the tracking, said he thinks the board will delay consideration of launching the program because of concerns over the 2026-27 budget funding also presented at the work session. In addition, an employee of Tyler Technologies Inc., the company proposing to provide the services, later indicated school officials have asked him to revamp the proposal to be less comprehensive. The proposal presented at the work session was for two options. One included card readers for each bus so students could use a card to check in and check out as bus passengers. The cost of that one was $325,905 the first year. It would use QR codes assigned to each student on a card, possibly on the same card used for other school purposes, the Tyler employees said. The other option did not include the cards or card readers, meaning drivers to check in or out each students, or let the students check themselves in or out. It was $282,565 the first year. After the first year, additional years would be $63,913 for either plan, plus the cost of replacement tablets. Initial tablets are included in the start-up funding, as are the software work, hardware installation and mapping information. FROM 3 TO 1 BUS CONTRACTORS In 2025, the school system started formally studying the possibility of operating all the county system's school buses, enlarging its reach from only operating the smaller special education buses. A committee chaired by Hughes talked with Washington County bus officials in September because that county system operates its own buses and is comparable in size to Sullivan County. The idea was to slowly take over routes from bus contractors as owners retired or went out of business. Instead, Sullivan County recently ended up with only one bus contractor, Central Bus. Co. Inc., operated by Jeremy Blair. Again, however, Sullivan school officials may look to Washington County school bus officials for help since the neighboring county uses the Tyler Technologies Inc. system. Other systems that use Tyler in the Volunteer State include Metro Nashville, the largest system in the state, and Lebanon. With about 85 school bus routes in the county, Josh Bradley of Tyler Technologies said the program would pull a GIS, or geographic information system, map for the county and come up with possible improvements in routing, based on parameters provided by the school system. In addition, drivers would be trained to use the tablets that would be on each bus. Kim Martin, a Tyler employee, said such training would be available for new hires down the road. She is industry engagement consultant in Tyler's Municipal & Schools Division. "All your training costs are included here," Bradley, who lives in Mount Juliet in Middle Tennessee, said of classes of 10 bus drivers at a time. However, he said having a driver or other person designated to train other drivers in the future is how most systems handled training. He said the tablets should last seven to 10 years and the replacement costs for those would be the county school system's responsibility. Founded in 1966, Tyler Technologies operates in 49 states, all except Hawaii, and has been in business for 40 years, Bradley said. Tyler is based in Plano, Texas, according to its website. MONEY ISSUES Assistant Director of Schools Ingrid Deloach presented to the school board about the budget. The school system began the 2025-26 school year with $27,525,329 in fund balance. However, by law, the system must keep 3% of its budget — or 3,028,056 — in the fund balance, and $9,705,670 was used to balance the 2025-26 budget. Deloach said that leaves a total available fund balance of about $14,700,700. The estimated fund balance to start the 2026-27 year, Deloach put in the presentation, is about $9 million, with $5,790,700 of that needed to balance the 2026-27 budget. Hughes said he fears progress in hiring — made possible by a 15% teacher pay increase recently — will be lost as other systems, including Kingsport and Bristol, Tennessee, catch up to and surpass the county. "Right now, we're able to hire from Kingsport and Bristol, sometimes," Hughes said. And all that operating money does not include capital project money to pay for things like replacing roofs, HVAC and electric switchgears. Hughes said the County Commission in 2015 supplied $1.6 million in money designated for capital projects but two years later removed that money. Hughes said the system has gone from 10,581 students in 2014, when the budget was about $87 million, to a budget of about $100 million with 7,500 students. He said the dollar increase is mostly inflation, and that the school system has lost an average of 216 students a year. Accounting for inflation increasing budget needs and fewer students lessening budget needs, Hughes said the net result is a need of roughly $108 million for 2026-27, accounting for variables of inflation and decreased enrollment. The school system is funded through a private act that puts the finances of the school system, including revenue projections, in the hands of the County Commission and county finance officials instead of school system officials and the school board. The commission also has the ultimate authority over setting the property tax rate, part of which goes toward funding schools countywide, as well as how much property tax revenue versus sales tax revenue is used to fund schools. The two Tyler employees said, in the long run, the routing would become more efficient and save money for the system. POTENTIAL PROPOSAL ISSUES If and when the Tyler Technologies proposal moves forward, discussion in the work session included the following points: Asked about a lack of strong cellular phone services in more rural areas of the county, Martin said: "The best solution we've come up with is to have it on cellular or WiFi." When WiFi was available, the data collected on the tablet would be transmitted and stored in the cloud. The system would draw PowerSchool software as many times a day as needed, but Director of Schools Chuck Carter said that "works only as good as people update addresses at the school." Martin said all that needs to occur is for addresses to be updated by parents or guardians. However, board member Mary Rouse, a former principal, said Powerschool only allows one address per student, which could cause issues with students who spend part of their time with one parent and the other part with another parent or other relative. The system is secure, but in the case of parents who are divorced, Martin said the system could be configured to give tracking information only to authorized or custodial parents or guardians. Blair said he is concerned about drivers getting used to using the tablets. "My biggest concern is 85% of our drivers are retirees," Blair said. "Technology is hard." For instance, Blair said "it's a lot more to ask a driver to do" by checking students on and off the bus with the tablet, which by Tennessee law said can't be used except when the bus is in park and not moving. On the other hand, Blair said the step-by-step routing would be "great" for substitute drivers. Martin responded that retirees and other older drivers actually do better with the tablets than younger drivers because members of the latter group have "muscle memory" from using cell phones and tablets in the past. Bradley said drivers are not expected to block traffic or delay transportation by staying stopped if it is dangerous or too time consuming. The information is gathered and transferred later, he said. Even if the school board voted in April to move forward with the contract for 2026-27, Bradley said it would be September or later before the program could be ready to go. For one thing, he said he advised against implementing a new system at the start of a new school year. Carter asked about doing a pilot program on certain routes, but Bradley said it would be difficult to do that because it would take about 150 hours to build a map of the county system's bus service areas.