NASHVILLE – Rep. JoAnne Favors’ mandatory school bus seat belt legislation was amended in a House panel Tuesday afternoon to require state government to pick up the entire tab of paying costs for seat belts on new buses before it could take effect.
Government Operations Committee Chairman Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, moved the amendment, saying he couldn’t support a state mandate that costs the three poorer counties he represents to bear a share of the costs.
Favors, D-Chattanooga, who introduced the bill in response to last November’s deadly Woodmore Elementary School bus crash that killed six children in Brainerd, had little choice but to accept the amendment to get the measure out of Faison’s committee.
The bill, now carrying Faison’s amendment, passed on a voice vote. It now goes to the House Budget Subcommittee, which is chaired by Rep. Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, a co-sponsor of the bill.
“I was OK with it because it probably wouldn’t have gone through with a recommendation without it,” Favors later said of Faison’s amendment.