A new Texas law requires all school buses be equipped with three-point seat belts by September 2029.
But much sooner than that — the end of next month — school boards must compile and report costs, bus fleet size and additional information to the Texas Education Agency, toward compliance with Senate Bill 546.
Lawmakers provided no funding for school districts to meet the new requirement.
"This would be considered an unfunded mandate," Plano ISD Deputy Superintendent Johnny Hill told trustees at a March 24 board meeting. Hill concluded the TEA may already expect districts will find compliance to be "cost prohibitive."
In Plano ISD's case, 216 of the 314 school buses in its fleet already comply with the law. Of those that don't, most lack any seatbelts. Nineteen have lap belts only.
Plano ISD estimates it would cost a little more than $16 million to replace all buses that lack three-point seat belts. Retrofitting them would cost $6.6 million.
Hill said he hopes and expects the May reporting deadline will give lawmakers enough time to find the money in future legislative sessions to help pay for this seat-belt law.
Attorney Mark Tilley, who heads legal services for the Texas Association of School Boards, hopes so too. In his more than two decades practicing education law, he said he can't recall seeing a law like this, with years built into compliance.
"They could very well have said, you've got to get all your buses in compliance by 2029, period,'" he said. "So this does give some hope that they're planning to look at what the price tag is and help out.
"They wouldn't have put a required report to the legislature if there wasn't some intent of the legislature to do something about it," he added.
The law, written partly in response to a fatal 2024 accident involving a Hays CISD school bus that killed a pre-kindergartener, includes an exemption allowing two-point seat belts if a district shows it can't afford to make the switch. It also allows districts to accept gifts, grants and donations to cover the cost of installing three-point seat belts.
That's the direction Allen ISD trustees are considering. The board voted last week to direct staff to research all funding options, including grants.
Superintendent Robin Bullock, speaking during a meeting earlier in March, said the state "already burned" the district once before when it tried to meet a previous unfunded safety mandate.
Bullock recalled rushing out to buy ballistic shields and other safety tools required under 2023's House Bill 3.
"The grants became available afterwards," Bullock said. "We sought reimbursement through those grants and we were denied because they were …only to purchase, not to be reimbursed."
Of the district's 138 buses, 39 are already equipped with three-point seat belts, according to board meeting documents. Allen ISD estimates it will cost $20.1 million to replace the other buses with SB546-compliant vehicles.
Retrofitting those that aren't would cost Allen ISD an estimated $3.5 million. Both Allen and Plano ISD have said retrofitting won't always be cost effective, especially on old buses due for retirement soon anyway.
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