Texas School Districts Grapple With Costs, Compliance Ahead of SB 546 Deadline
Waco, TX (FOX 44) — As Texas college districts work to satisfy the necessities of Senate Bill 546, many are nonetheless within the early phases of compliance.
The regulation requiring three-point seat belts on all college buses by 2029 is creating logistical and monetary challenges for districts statewide.
The Waco Independent School District is at present within the implementation part conducting a complete assessment of its bus fleet to find out which automobiles meet compliance requirements and which is able to must be upgraded or changed.
“Waco ISD plans to be in compliance with the new Senate Bill,” Acting Director of Transportation for WISD, Monquoe Brock stated. “They do have up until 2029 to make sure that all fleet is in compliance.”
The largest hurdle to assembly the 2029 deadline is value with districts going through important bills to improve or exchange buses to adjust to the regulation.
“Any time any large project is implemented, the money has to come from somewhere,” Brock acknowledged. “So those are decisions that the board and the district will look into and make sure that they’re properly allocating resources to make sure that we are in compliance.”
The district has been actively pursuing grant funding to assist offset the associated fee of compliance.
“I think a lot of what we ran into ourselves in the beginning was vendors’ pricing, comparing if the buses are eligible, if we can get a better price from one vendor, we didn’t get that the other just to make sure that we’re getting the district the best price to make sure that we can get all the buses into compliance,” Brock stated.
Killeen ISD trustees are discovering, as produce other districts, that assembly new college bus seat belt necessities is pricey reaching into the thousands and thousands.
During their Tuesday board assembly…
“Trustees, in fact, determined that implementation of three-point seatbelts on all school buses is not feasible within the district’s current budget, at least not now,” Killeen ISD stated in an announcement.
The district stories that…
“About half of the KISD buses are equipped with three-point seat belts now, but the estimated cost to retrofit and replace remaining buses would be $10.2 million,” Killeen ISD stated in an announcement.
Districts are balancing security targets with funding realities as they work towards full compliance with Senate Bill 546.
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