POPLARVILLE — Supervisors and superintendents from the county’s four school districts agreed on Monday to closely monitor the selection of school bus turnarounds and consult each other before approving any more.

Supervisors, citing tight budget restrictions, called for Monday’s conference with school superintendents at the supervisors’ board meeting, saying at earlier meetings that they were spending an estimated $150,000 to $200,000 annually on installation and maintenance of the turnarounds along with access roads, which are requested by the school districts under a state law that allows supervisors to install them.

Supervisor and board president Anthony Hales told the four superintendents, who attended the meeting, that the supervisors were not going to cut out completely the installation of the turnarounds but were looking at some way to cut back on the expenses associated with their installation.

“We realize that under state law they are allowable, but we have for several months been looking at ways to cutback on some, since some amount to maintaining what is essentially a private drive, in some cases,” Hales told the superintendents.

Superintendents on hand for the discussion were Poplarville superintendent Carl Merrit, Picayune’s Dean Shaw, Pearl River County’s Dennis E. Penton and Lumberton Line’s Robert Walker.

Lumberton Line is mostly in Lamar County, but a small portion of the district extends into the extreme northern section of Pearl River Co.

Hales said it was his understanding that if someone wants their child picked up, they approach the school’s transportation director, then the director notifies the school board, the school board then investigates the request, and if approved by the school board, the request is then forwarded to the board of supervisors for implementation, construction and maintenance.

What supervisors have pointed out, however, and why they requested a session with the superintendents, is because in some cases the turnarounds are located at the end of a two-mile road to a residence off the main public road and in some cases amounts to a private drive that supervisors sometimes have to upgrade and maintain.

Supervisor Hudson Holliday gave as an example one turnaround request, which was essentially a private road to a residence that stretched 2.5 miles to the home, and he said that daily, counting a trip in and out by the bus, the bus ran 10 miles on a private drive to pick up and deliver that child. “That’s 50 miles a week,” said Holliday. Besides maintaining the turnaround, the county would have to maintain the private drive to give access to the turnaround.

“I am not going to turn down a request from the school board,” Holliday said, “because the law is the law, but I have pushed for better organizing this and setting some overall policy that would better manage the expenditure of funds on these projects.”

“It seems to me that the program has been abused,” Holliday said. “People can live where they want to. If they want to live at the back of 500 acres, they can. But it is not the county’s responsibility to build a road to their house. We have people come to us who live in the back of their land, and they come to us and say we have two children that need to be picked up by the bus. They think it is a right, actually. But some of these requests are unreasonable and the distances require the buses to pick up some of the kids at 6 in the morning.

“It’s something that has to be addressed, and it needs to be uniform, without one supervisor doing one thing and another supervisor doing another thing,” said Holliday.

Merritt told supervisors that there are a lot of factors that go into okaying a turnaround request. “We do turn some down after investigating the request,” he said. “What the actual solution to the problem is, I don’t know, but I agree that we should have a uniform policy and work together someway to solve it.”

Penton gave supervisors a map showing the 25 turnarounds in his district and also gave them a map showing the location of registered sex offenders in his district.

“One of the main factors we look at,” said Penton, “is when you drop a kid off, you don’t want that child to have to walk past a sex offender’s house. You want to get them as close to their home as possible so you can watch them go inside.”

Penton told supervisors that “in years past” we have gotten calls from supervisors “requesting bus turnarounds,” too.

“Some of our longest ones date back to when supervisors called us, and said, ‘What about a turnaround here’,” said Penton. “We can do better. We all can do better, but we do much like Mr. Merritt said. Some are even requested by bus drivers when they are unable to turnaround their buses in a certain location.”

Penton also said that even though the state law outlines procedures for approving and installing a bus turnaround, the laws are outdated. “I think it specifies that you can’t spend more than $150 on installing a turnaround, but you can’t even purchase a wheelbarrow full of gravel for that now,” Penton said.

Penton said that when they receive a request, school transportation officials go out and investigate the request and location, and also taken into consideration is the age of the child. “We are not going to put a kindergarten child out a long way from his home, whereas if the student is a junior or senior, we might. I have looked at our maps, and I don’t think that the 25 we have are too many.”

Penton suggested that if the supervisors believe that the program is being abused, “the county officials go with us and investigate it together, and we both review it before it is submitted.”

Added Penton, “We can’t do without the turnarounds. We have to have them for the buses to get in and out. Some of those turnarounds are in people’s yards but on a public road.”

Hales told Penton, “I want us all to understand. The bus turnarounds that are on or at the end of a public road, is not the problem. The ones we are looking at is those at the end of private driveways.”

Hales said that when he first became a supervisor, he had one turnaround that was at the end of a three-mile road. “That was ridiculous to call something that long a school bus turnaround,” said Hales.

Walker told supervisors, “I understand that there can be some abuses out there, and I am not going to approve a turnaround that does. My main concern is the safety of those kids, and if their safety is an issue, we will have to do some things to make sure they are safe.” Walker endorsed Penton’s suggestion that both county and school officials investigate a proposed turnaround. “Let’s make the decision as a group,” he said.

“Mr. Walker, that is why we wanted to get all of you up here. You can’t make decisions in a vacuum, and that’s the reason we have not made a decision on this. We wanted you all’s input first,” Holliday said.

“I hope every one realizes that I am opened-minded about this, but it does have to be discussed. It’s gotten down to a matter of available money,” Hales said.

Shaw told supervisors that he would work with them on the issue, too. “We will take steps to help in anyway we can and cooperate with the board in trying to improve things on this issue,” he said.

Supervisor Sandy Kane Smith said he checks out all his turnaround requests. “If we just use common sense and good judgment, we can work this out,” Smith said.