School Board to Bus Drivers: Buy Your Own Pants!

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) -- Faced with millions in state cuts, the Clayton County school board is balking at paying $75,000 for pants for the district's bus drivers.

The expense is part of a plan announced two weeks ago to put the district's 500 bus drivers and special-education bus monitors in uniforms. District officials say the uniforms are part of a homeland security upgrade aimed at preventing terrorists from hijacking school buses.

The district already has spent $18,000 on shirts, but school board members said at a meeting Monday night the drivers should buy their own pants.

The expenditure comes as the 48,000-student district is losing $23 million in state funding and is laying off 153 teachers and 102 workers.