Present. Mr. Harris >> here. >> Mr. Harris is present. Mr. Hollis >> here. >> Mr. Holland is present. Miss Holloway. >> Miss Holloway is present. Miss Meerine. >> Mr. Meerine is present. Mr. Morris >> here. >> Mr. Morris is present. You have a forum.
>> Thank you. Uh, first item, please. >> Your first item is on page 50, item 4.1, consideration of a report from education finance staff concerning Bessie authorized charter school budgets. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Almost I missed the
first one. Um the consent agenda is ready for approval adding items 4.4 and 7.2. We have a motion please. Miss Holloway and Miss Champang. Any discussion? Any objection?
Next item, please. Your first item is on page 50, item 4.1, consideration of a report from education finance staff concerning Bessie authorized charter school budgets and expenditure reports including irregularities or concerns.
The recommendation is to receive >> a motion please. Mr. Castile a second Mr. Appel any discussion questions any objections? Seeing none next item please.
Your next item is on page 57, item 4.2, consideration of LDOE contracts greater than $50,000. The recommendation is to approve. >> Motion. Dr. Armstrong. Mr. Harris seconds. Any discussion?
Any objection? Being none, motion passes. Next, please. Your next item is on page 70, item 4.3, consideration of federal, state grants and allocations to LEAs, type 2 charters, type five charters, approve
non-public schools and community- based organizations, competitive and under other. The recommendation is to approve. >> Motion Miss Miller, Dr. Clark, any discussion? Any objections? Hearing none, motion
passes. Next, >> your next item is on page 90, item 5.1, consideration of AG funding cycle activities, approval of 8G statewide programs for fiscal year 2025 2026. The
recommendation is to approve. >> Motion, Mr. Hollis, Miss uh Holloway. Any discussion? Any objections? Seeing none, motion passes. Next
Your next item is on page 95, item 6.1, consideration of the Bessie budget. The recommendation is to authorize. >> Mr. Repel and Mr. Harris. Second. Any discussion?
Any objections? Motion passes. Next, please. >> Your next item is on page 96, item 6.2, Two, consideration of Bessie contracts for 8G evaluation services for fiscal year 2025 2026. The recommendation is to
approve. >> Motion, Dr. Clark, Miss Millerin. Any discussion? Any objections? Motion passes. Next, >> your next item is on page 103, item 7.1,
consideration of the Bessie annual meeting schedule for the 2027 calendar year. The recommendation is to approve. >> Motion, Mr. Morris, Miss Halloway. Um, any discussion?
Did everyone have a chance to look at that? Anything that stands out? I did notice we typically have the joint meeting in August. Uh I think it looks like that was moved to June. So just a note.
Any objection? Motion passes. Next, please. >> Your next item is on page 133, item 7.3, consideration of a review of the contract process. The recommendation is to receive. So uh motion Miss Champine,
Mr. Harris. So let me just uh preface this. Um we are asked on this committee uh to approve contracts 50,000 and below is at the discretion
and the u of the superintendent. But everything over 50,000 uh becomes under our purview and we have to um approve. I found it whenever I um asked Miss Lexi
Pritchard um a few months ago how to um what is the process of going through and and selecting these sperms individuals with regards to all of these contracts. And after about 45 minutes of her
explaining to me what all they had to go through, I said, "Okay, I u I get it now." Um, and but I thought it would be helpful for us as a body to have uh Mr. Bradford come up to talk about the
process of uh contracting and how do we go about getting people that we contract with and all. So with that, um, Mr. Bradford, thank you for coming up and uh look forward to your presentation. >> Uh and we've already done the receions
to receive. We're good. Okay. Uh I just want to acknowledge um first of all, Mr. Burkin, your willingness to uh sit down and and walk through a process to get a better sense of understanding of how things uh work so that you can be as
prepared as you possibly can be. So, I just want to compliment you on that. Um, and also I just want to acknowledge Ken Bradford as as our chief of staff. Does a really good job um on everyday uh operations of the agency. We talk a lot about, you know, educational outcomes
and reading uh proficiency and math proficiency and CTE and all those types of things, but I think sometimes it's lost that um we LDOE, we are an actual state agency uh with personnel, with budgets, um with uh organizational uh
functions, and so much of that falls on Ken's shoulders every day working alongside me and our team. And I just want to acknowledge uh his work. Um what he'll present today is a contracting process and he gets um collaborates a ton with with Beth CNO in finance and
and Lexi Pritchard who is Ken's deputy chief uh as well as working with Tony Liji and his team in legal. Um so it's a a team effort to move these through. But I just want to acknowledge Ken for the tremendous work that you do for the agency. >> Thank you Dr. Bramley. Uh I'll start
with just uh be very transparent that that contracts it's it's it's unlike we are like a limited liability company and we're going and we're engaging just with a contract with somebody. Our contracting
process and procedures are outlined in statute revised statute 391551 and the Louisiana administrative code title 34 part 5. So we have to follow a very strict process for our contracts. The the contracts that Mr. Burkin and
Dr. Brumley alluded to 50,000 and under the state superintendent can approve a contract. That contract for us the process in itself takes approximately 8 to 10 weeks from start to finish to go through all the checks and balances on that. That contract also before it can
be executed has to be approved by the office of of state procurement. So that's the timeline for a contract $50,000 and under. Once we go over $50,000, once we get, let's just say, to the 8 to 10 weeks that we have completed the
contract, OSB has approved it, we have to then wait until the next Bessie meeting, and then we bring that to you for approval for contracts over $50,000. So if if uh this Thursday we completed a contract after 10 weeks, then we would add an additional amount of weeks till
we got to the December Bessie meeting because we cannot execute that contract until you approve it, which then gives Dr. Brumley the authority to to sign that contract. And then contracts that are over $150,000 would actually have to go through a competitive RFP process. And and that
process is about 18 months from from start to finish. And then uh we would also have to bring that contract here to the board for Rubom. So with that um I'll move into the types of contracts that the department engages
in. Again these types of contracts are in statute and administrative code. There's basically seven types of contracts that the department engages in. So what I want to do is briefly explain each type of those and then what I'll do is give you an example of h why
we would be leveraging that type of specific contract. And so the first one would be a consulting contract. This is what three4s of our contracts are here in the department of education. An example here would be us contracting
with a Louisiana teacher to help develop curriculum or serve as one of our teacher leader adviserss who reviews curriculum as part of our instructional materials review process. The second type of contract uh would be a a professional and the third type
would be personal professional and personal contracts. This comprises about 9% of the contracts in the Department of Education. As a matter of fact, I was looking today. You received a contract that you approved
earlier in this committee for $45,000. That was considered a personal contract and that was for an interpreter. It was a $45,000. So, when we host meetings, uh if it if the interpreter is requested, we have to have somebody on retainer that can come and do signing. So that's
an example of a of a personal contract. Professional contract in this category would be accountants or um legal work when we when we have to engage outside counsel for for legal work. The next bucket of contract which
comprises 11% of our contracts is an inter agency or intergovernmental contract. The ones you'll see here are when we engage with contracts with our higher ed institutions. So for instance, we've we've brought forward in the past here a a contract with LSU Alexandria to
work with our aspiring educators in the summer. We've also brought forth a contract here in this category with Southeastern Louisiana University for the grades 6 to 12 computer science practice preparation. That's an example
of a a university contract. The next type would be a cooperative endeavor agreement. This is actually less than 1% of the contracts housed within with the department of education. When there is a line item appropriation
in the legislature and that line item appropriation where the department serves as the flowth through, we will flow those dollars to the for example a particular vendor that may may be named in legislation. We would flow those
dollars out to that vendor through a cooperative endeavor agreement. And finally, the last type of contract is a social services contract. Uh this is around 5% of the agency contracts. An
example here would be with when we receive our federal dollars for the early childhood program. One of the conditions around receiving those federal dollars for early childhood programs is that that there has to be a level of professional development
provided to the early childhood education centers. So when we get those federal dollars, we retain a a portion of those dollars and it's required that we go out and we train our early childhood education centers and provide them professional development. That is con that particular contract would be
considered a social service. There's nine steps in the contracting process here internally. And again, I would just say that if it's a contract 50,000 and under, we could expect that to be 8 to 10 weeks. Contracts beyond
that would be uh over 50,000 would be 8 to 10 weeks plus the time it takes us to bring it back to you for approval. And larger contracts that go out on an RFP, those are upwards of 18 months from from start to finish.
When we prepare this this contract, there's upwards of 20 additional documents depending on which of the seven types of contract and the amounts of the contracts, but there's 20 additional contract documents that go
with that package for for a contract. I'm not going to go through each of the 20 individual documents in that contract. uh feel free to reach out to me and we'll set some time up and I can go through some of those very specific documents that are required pursuant to administrative code and office of state
procurement. But I do want to give you some examples. Um so the first one on on this slide what I would what I would use as an example here is uh the contract itself and that is the legally binding agreement between
the parties. Whenever we engage in a contract, there's a template that the state provides that we have to use for a contract. It has the terms of the contract, the payment terms of the contract. The contract has to have a set of measurable objectives in it. So,
that's an example of the document. We download the document, program staff works with our legal team, then we go back and forth with whoever we're engaging the contract with. Uh but that that's an example of like one of the the 20 documents that would be used.
Another example here would be our uh performance evaluation. We get asked often uh sometimes by you the best have asked h how how do we know that the entity that we are engaging with in a contract has performed? Well, we have
sets of deliverables within that contract. At the end of the contracting period, we have a performance evaluation of that. And that performance evaluation be becomes a a record and part of the LGOV record. And think of LGV as the system that houses the contracts for the
for the state of Louisiana. Another example of the the many contract documents that go into a package would be our signature authorization. So whenever we enter into a contract with a vendor, we have to make sure that that vendor, whoever the employee is, with
some of these larger companies, is actually authorized to to sign a contract on behalf of them. And finally, at the last example here on this side would be like TRSL uh member notice. Anytime we engage in a contract
with a teacher in the state of Louisiana based on where they are in the TRSL system, uh they are they're capped on the amount of dollars that they they can generate through a through a contract based on their TRSL status. So whenever
we we're engaging in this teacher contract, we have to then go to TRSL and we have to check what is their status. Are they retired? Not status. if they are retired, how much are we allowed to contract them for? So again, the completion of all these 20 documents,
going through our legal team, uh working with the vendor that we would be engaging in, again, this takes 8 to 10 weeks to get everything fully wrapped up, and then before we can execute that contract, the office of state procurement has to approve that.
And finally, internally here at at the department, just the roles of some of our staff in this in this process. I I was counting earlier this morning the the number of agency individuals that actually would touch a contract before
it's uh has a a final approval. And that is around seven there's around seven staff members that are in different roles that are actually signing off and checking that contract. And that's everything from our legal team to our budget team etc. that that review a
contract. We do have a five uh member team that's in our operations division. This is our contract procurement and review team. There are actually civil service positions that deal specifically with
contracts. There as an example, this team has a procurement analyst three position on that team. This team also has a position as a contract and grant reviewer and those are civil service uh classified job titles that people
specialize in doing this work. There's our operations team. Uh they do the TRSL reviews. They provide the technology that's that's behind generating all of these contracts and monitoring them and
and tracking them. We have our budget team and this would be someone on deputy superintendent CNO's teams that is working with us to make sure that we have the not only the budget authority but we have the funds for any of the contracts.
And then finally we have the program manager. This is the individual that owns the work that's impacted by a contract. So like when I gave that example of the sign language contract earlier, you know, that would be an example of someone perhaps on our communications team that that is the
liaison for that contract and is the main one responsible for it. We have a contract liaison. We have seven divisions in the department of education like seven offices and each of those offices has a contract liaison where they work directly with our team
if there's if they're trying to move a contract forward. There's a contract administrator and buyer. This just the these contracts have to be put in the LGV system. Again, think of that as this the
contracts. Uh and then finally a a deputy chief. So each of our assistant superintendent has has a deputy and they work to ensure that our contract team is working with the right people on the right team. You know, and it's possible
sometimes we have a staff member that's been assigned to a contract and that staff member either retires or transitions from the agency. It's their job and their role to tell us, hey, we've got someone changing. We need to change our liaison on this this particular contract. I'll pause there. Um, that's kind of the
end of the presentation, Mr. Burman, but I'll pause there to see if if the board has any questions about our contracting process, the types of contracts, etc., and I'll do my best to answer them for you. >> Before Mr. Appel starts, it's safe to say that someone uh within the
department just can't go out and pick a person to contract with. they have to uh really be vetted and go through a litany of things before they are approved to receive a contract or to be the contract.
>> They have to be registered with the Secretary of State and etc. It's part of those 20 documents, but yes, sir, they they are vetted. >> Mr. Appel, thank you. I have actually I have several questions. Let me start with the simple one. Uh change orders and changing scopes. What is the procedure?
um say you got a $50,000 professional service contract and suddenly it could potentially go to 100. I mean, do you have to go through the whole process again or what is the procedure? >> So, I'll just use your example. If we had a $50,000 contract in place right now that that we were working on and
then you would have received that as the board, you would have received that at at uh the Bessie meeting and said, "Hey, Dr. Rumley in the department has engaged in a contract for $50,000 like the one we did earlier today for the sign language. Let's use that sign language one for
example. $45,000. You you heard it here today. If after today we said, "Wow, there's been a significant increase. We need to have more of those services from that particular vendor and we want to increase that contract to $70,000." What we would do on our end is a contract
amendment. And then because we have now gone over that threshold of of $50,000, we would have to bring it back for you to ratify here in December and then we could execute on the additional dollars beyond $50,000. >> So you wouldn't have to go through the 18-month procedure.
>> No, only if we were to go over the $150,000 annually, then we would have to we would have to go through the RFP. Now, I we don't do this and we haven't done it often. Your Bessie administrative code does have a process in place for an emergency contract and
we are real tight on that. There has uh and we try not to bring those to the board. There has to be like a natural event or or disaster that has happened in order for us to to invoke that clause. But if we were if we were hardpressed theoretically the board
president uh could we would provide him a contract and say we need this contract. It's an emergency. I believe the Bessie administrative code now says that he has to share it with the full board for 24 hours. After 24 hours, we can execute the contract and then it comes for full ratification at the next
board meeting. >> Are any of these contracts automatic renewal contracts where after 12 months they automatically renew unless you cancel them. >> It's it's not a renewal per se, but is we can do a contract uh for up to three years. >> Up to three.
>> So we have three years. So the contract can be can be at at three years but it can't go beyond three years. >> Okay. Um do we require shity guarantee on any of these contracts or a bond for instance?
>> I would defer to our legal team on that. There is a um my understanding is yes there is something relative because they're a state contract. So they're >> well I know in construction type contracts hard dollar contracts is always a bomb >> but I didn't know if any of these other types
>> I'm going to let our council >> okay while he's coming up I have one more general question suppose somebody were to come to you and say give me the best practice design of a system that wouldn't take 18 freaking
months to get a contract approved could is that doable I Is are there has anybody ever looked at other states to see what they do? I mean, that's unbelievable. 18 months. >> And you might clarify that's a um that's
an OSP process, not an LDOE process. >> No, no, I understand it's not LDOE, but I'm just saying how >> I understand that you may understand that, but I I'm not certain that everybody else would understand. I I don't know how you run a state when you're if you got a you have a need and then you got to wait 18 months for that
need to be fulfilled. That need probably change four times between in the 18 months. I mean I'm just expressing a frustration. That's all. >> Yeah. I mean the the the most we could do would be 150,000 a year with your with your approval and then but if we go
exceed that it would have to I don't know if anybody helps to look at the process. I look, I think it's a testament to the planning that has to go on internally here here at the agency with our with our own staff. And >> you may recall that when the legislation
was passed for the Gator program, there was some legislation there to help expedite that process, but that was still lengthy and took us a while to to expedite, but it wasn't 18 months, but we were able to minimize it down to 11 months. >> Gotcha. Okay. I'm sorry. Last that was
my last question was the shy thing. And and let me add also if you recall the uh the uh main street recovery program from a few years back, the legislature very wisely understood the length of the
process and because of the fact that it was necessary to get funds in people's hands as quickly as possible, the legislature built in the same procurement waiver that we have on Gator. So, uh, it's it's not a secret
that the process is lengthy. There's no question about it. >> Well, if anybody on the fourth floor is listening, that I'd suggest is a really good idea that they could tackle. >> Yeah. >> Is to fix the procurement process in Louisiana. But anyway, what's the sh >> relative to shies? It would depend on
the nature of the contract, the amount involved, the the type of work involved. So, uh, it's it's not in all contracts, but probably the the larger amount contracts, it there will be clauses in
there in that regard. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Le. Um, any other discussion, questions? >> Thank you, Mr. Bradford. I really appreciate that. Um, any objections to the motion? I guess there was none. Next
item, please. >> Your next item is on page 140, item 7.4, consideration of a cooperative endeavor agreement regarding the Louisiana Healthy Schools Community Project. The recommendation is to approve.
>> Miss Champine, Dr. Armstrong second. Any discussion? Any objection? Hearing none, that passes. Next, please. >> Your next item is on page 144, item 8.1,
consideration of a discussion regarding school bus speed limits. The recommendation is to receive. >> Um motion, Miss Holloway, Mr. Castile. Um any discussion? There is. We have um
Miss Holloway, would you? >> Sure. If I may, I'd like to brief the board on the reason why this item has come forward. uh Superintendent um Martin brought this item to my attention and um to have this as an agenda item
and of course he's here today to speak to you. But what you'll hear today um are um statues administrative code title 28 to the Louisiana revised statutes and of course the repeal in 2010 Louisiana
revised statute 3262 which was removed from the statutory provision and after um Superintendent Martin speaks I'd like to um have an opinion on a recommendation along along with Miss Ashley Townson that's been working with
us. So, um, Mr. Martin. Yeah. >> So, we have, uh, Jared Martin, superintendent Lushberry Schools. Yes, sir. Thanks for being here. >> Thank you for having me. Uh, like Miss Holloway said, I'm here because we discovered that there was um I don't
want to say inconsistent, but but not exactly the same language as it relates to revised statutes and administrative code, which I did not know existed relative to uh bus speeds in Louisiana. So right now what I understand to be
true um and as Miss Holloway cited um administrative code title 28 part CX I II uh 907D2 says at no time shall a school bus be
operated in excess of 55 miles per hour including interstate travel. Um, as a practical measure, we send school buses to football games in Shreveport from Tibido. Um, and on I 49 where the speed limit is 75. I I would argue personally that that's probably not the safest
speed for a bus to be going. um where traffic is passing much faster. But I would not pretend to be an expert on speed limit safety, but I would I would ask that this body take a close look at that policy and consider increasing the speed that buses would travel on
interstates where the speed limit is 70 or 75 miles per hour. So that's why I'm here today. >> But Superintendent Mort, would you address that? You had a conversation with the Louisiana State Police with Chief Besson. >> I did. Um, and that came to me. I had a
question from a constituent who was following some of our buses where the speed limit is 70. And I was asked, "How fast can your buses travel?" Um, and I said, "Well, they can travel at the posted speed limit, but I believe that there might be a revised statute that prohibits them from going beyond 55, but
I'll look into it." I reached out to Louisiana State Police and they said there is no such law that a school bus would never get a ticket for going beyond 55 miles per hour. But there is in fact an administrative code that prohibits it. Um, and this particular state troopers, uh, Lieutenant Colonel
Frank Basau, the second ranking state trooper in Louisiana, who got this information to me and said that the easiest path forward would be for Bessie to admend the administrative code as opposed to going back to the legislative process, which I believe was brought up
in 20, but because of COVID, it did not make it to uh, fruition. This was told to me by Representative Brian Fonta. questions, discussion. >> I have a motion. Oh, I'm sorry. >> Yes, sir.
>> Uh, this I appreciate Miss Holloway bringing this up. I get this complaint all the time in my district uh that buses aren't going able to go fast enough on the interstate and it is very dangerous. uh somebody coming up on one at night
very quickly. If they're going 55 miles an hour and someone's going 85, it's difficult for them to stop. So, uh I would recommend personally uh I think you're looking for suggestions. I don't know. >> Well, you may like this, Mr. Harris.
Um we we discussed it with Ashley and of course Superintendent Morton about is it our bassie board responsibility LDOE and we're like okay do we make that or are we the experts? So here's the motion. I move to refer the bus speed limit
rulemaking discussion to the LDOE and direct the LDOE to work with DOT D and LSP the um share I'm sorry state trooper department to draft policy language if appropriate for consideration at the
December 2025 board administration and education finance meeting. >> It's good for >> I have a comment too. Sure. >> Okay. So, there is a motion on the floor. Second, Mr. Harris seconds. Uh
discussion. Dr. >> Br. >> Yes. If we're going to think about increasing the speed limit, can we also look at which would be a cost of seat belts because I do own buses too and I know that that they do go 55 miles per hour, but I also know once we start
going 75 miles per hour or more or less and those kids are moving around, they're talking a distraction, they're doing stuff, there are no seat belts from those buses and it's not required per se or enforce. So maybe also looking at for safety because until the first
lawsuit hits >> I think you made the recommendation of 65 if I could recall. I mean that's something actually you'll have to Dr. Brumley take that. >> So a few comments here uh if it's okay absolutely
>> um probably Mr. Harris, Miss Champine, Mr. Appel, maybe Mr. Hollis uh were in the legislature when um this this statute was adjusted um so that buses don't have to travel 55 miles per hour.
But at that point in time um a a Bessie uh uh much like you all made the decision um in some type of way to keep that restricted to 55 miles per hour. um in I want to say 2022
maybe there was a discussion at the superintendent's advisory council um to consider ra removing this from um uh bulletin bessie bulletin um but at that point in time that Bessie did not want
to um take on the notion of increasing the limit for which buses could travel down the road. Um if you look at if you look at um driver reaction distance so at 45 miles per
hour it takes a bus driver 50 ft to react. At 55 61 ft once you get to 65 ft or so it's over 70 feet of reaction time. If you look at total stopping distance at 45 miles per hour it would
take a bus 346 ft to stop. At 55 it would take it 451 feet to stop. Once you get 70 I would assume it's about 600 feet to stop. Um also the the National Association of State Directors of
Transportation Services, they have a position paper on this. Um and in their position paper they say uh that they believe that buses should continue to operate at speed limits in effect for school buses around 1995 which was before it went to the 70 mph. In some
areas of the country this would result in school buses operating at 10 to 15 miles hour under the posted speed limit. So their belief is that buses should be operating at 10 to 15 miles per hour below the posted limit. That's from the National Association of School Buses. So, um, I appreciate Miss Holloway's
motion. I just want to be very clear that I'm not going to come before this board and recommend removal of this. So, if you all want to do that, that's that's absolutely fine. I'm just not going to be the one that's recommending doing that because I'm looking at this data and it's indicating um how that
becomes more problematic for the driver. >> It sounds like to me, Dr. Brumley with driving a school bus or >> Thank you for that. The the other comment that I need to make too is Miss Holloway um I'm sorry Dr. Clark on the
seat belts we have done for the legislature I believe it was whenever uh Representative Harris was the chair we completed a feasibility study on seat belts. So we would be happy as an agency to go ahead and share that with you because we have that study complete already. >> Could could I say something? So,
>> seat belts. >> I want to concur with Dr. Clark a little bit. I don't know what that study you're talking about is on seat belts, but the the danger to an unrestrained child in a bus going 55. It probably jumps up
exponentially if you're going 70 or 75. So, I think I don't know what that seat belt studies recommendations were or I know there's a cost factor involved, but I I suggest if you speed up if you allow buses to go much faster, you're creating
a much more dangerous situation for unrestrained children. That's just my personal feelings. >> And we'll we'll provide we'll provide the board a copy of that feasibility study. We we've already conducted that work. >> Dr. Armstrong. So, uh, Miss Holloway, am I correct that your motion was to defer
this to these organizations for them to give us some feedback on? >> Correct. It says to direct the LDOE to work with the DOTD and S LSP to draft policy if appropriate
>> for consideration at the December 2025 meeting. >> Okay. >> Is that >> Miss Hallway? Does that does that speak with clarity to any particular research we would like them to conduct or >> not for us but if you have any um
questions? I'm sure >> the board >> Yeah. if just a general sense if you would consider expanding that a little bit so that uh we understand we want them to do more than just you know adopt a motion if they think you know it's appropriate you know maybe we could ask
them >> maybe we could ask them to conduct appropriate research and um provide some support documentation for any recommendation they would offer >> I'm sure they're probably very well aware of research and having that data to support their decisions. Yeah. Yeah.
So, if we could just include that with the motion, I think we would cover the concern >> in my opinion. It's >> your motion. >> And again, >> I think it's understood. I mean, I I wouldn't come here without data and research without having, you know, that
to be able to make a recommendation. But >> Dr. Bramley, >> well, I was just going to share that. I mean, this is clearly a different board and and I'm thankful for that. But the reason the last board didn't vote on this is because in many ways they did not want to put children in a position
where these factors were reflected in this particular way and take on that additional liability. >> So you want data, >> Miss Miller? >> Yeah, I would I would appreciate having data. Uh I work in catastrophic loss. That's what I do every day. And I can tell you from my professional experience, there's a big difference.
Every five miles you increase at an impact of who walks away from an accident, who's catastrophically injured, and who will unfortunately not see their kids again. So, I think this is I understand both sides of it. Do we want our buses to be able to safely navigate their way down the interstate? Absolutely. But I would like to hear
from a professional whose job it is to do accident reconstruction, uh those type of safety concerns to weigh on what is the safest approach for our kids when their parents are entrusting them to be transported to or from school or events, especially in a situation where the injuries could be catastrophic or fatal.
>> Would it be to drive policy language and um consider conducting appropriate data analysis? I don't know. So, I mean, if the Louisiana State Police gives us a recommendation or report,
I would think we could make a decision from that, right? >> Mhm. >> Is that what your motion is asking? >> Yes, sir. >> Any other discussion? um just on the seat belt deal that we had a lot of arguments in the
legislature about that and the the uh local school board saw that as an unfunded mandate. It was very expensive. So just be ready for that. But it does need to be looked at. I agree wholeheartedly. But to your point, Dr. Brumley, you said
10 to 15 miles per hour under the posted speed limit. So this particular um report is a position paper from the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services and it's their position paper on speed limit for school
buses. And so it explains how basically in the 90s um >> some of the um the uh speed limits were increased um from 55 to 70. And so at that point in time, they did a study
around this and their suggestion was to make sure that you have the speed limits in effect for buses that were in effect prior to 95. And then it goes on to say that this would result in school buses operating at speeds 10 to 15 hours um
under the posted speed limit. >> So like at 75, it could be a 60 mile because that's what Yeah. I 49 is, >> right? >> Okay. Thank you. And and the only reason I had this is because we went through this like three years ago. Yeah.
>> Okay. We have a motion in a second. Any other discussion? Any objections to that motion? Hearing none. Motion passes. Next, please. >> Thank you, Mr. Martin. >> That concludes your agenda,
>> Mr. Pel notice the time on my committee. Thank you.