Horry schools ponder ads in buses

State gives districts option to sign with vendors
By Claudia Lauer - The Sun News

Rebecca Koenig/The Sun News
Students board buses at Myrtle Beach Middle School. Horry County schools had a meeting with a vendor about school bus advertising on Jan 18.Advertisements targeting school-age children could be making their way to Horry County school buses.

The S.C. Education Department has given the OK to school districts to start the advertising program under a general contract it signed with SAC Inc., an advertising firm in Warrenville, at the end of November.

"The state has given us the option, and we had a meeting with the advertising vendor that was purely informational," said Teal Britton, Horry County Schools spokeswoman. "There are lots of things that are yet to be determined, in terms of what the financial benefit would be to school districts."

The advertising company's contract with the state specifies that SAC will receive 20 percent of the revenue for each ad; the state, about 80 percent.

"The way the contract works is 80.1 percent of the gross income goes to the state technically because the state owns the property," said Don Tudor, director of the state Education Department's transportation office. "We recognize that these revenues should be appropriately shared with the school district. It is not the state who will be responsible for determining if the advertising is appropriate, and it's the children that make the advertising valuable."

Continued . . .