{"id":294929,"date":"2026-05-15T19:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/294929\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T19:23:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:23:14","slug":"houston-isd-faces-29-1m-cost-to-meet-new-texas-school-bus-seat-belt-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/294929\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston ISD faces $29.1M cost to meet new Texas school bus seat belt law"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn May 14, Houston ISD<\/a>\u2019s board of managers opted to request an exemption to a new state law requiring three-point seat belts on school buses that would cost the district about $29.1 million to comply with.<\/p>\n

Current situation<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 546<\/a> requires public school districts to add three-point seat belts to all school buses by Sept. 1, 2029, according to a May 14 presentation<\/a> from HISD Chief of Organizational Effectiveness Kari Feinberg. HISD has 278 buses that would either need to be retrofitted or replaced to comply with the new law, which could cost the district:<\/p>\n

$4.51 million total\u2014or $24,000-$38,000 per bus\u2014for retrofitting$24.59 million total\u2014or $156,000-$165,000 per bus\u2014to replace buses\u201cThe district’s budget does not permit an investment of over $29 million in new school buses and retrofitting current buses with three-point seatbelts,\u201d Feinberg said.\"chartThe action taken<\/p>\n

HISD trustees unanimously voted to file a petition<\/a> with the state stating that the district can\u2019t afford to meet the seat belt requirements by the deadline.<\/p>\n

Feinberg said SB 546 was not clear on how long the exemption would last, but she believes it will be effective at least for one year.<\/p>\n

What else?<\/p>\n

SB 546 was enacted in September and was approved during the state’s 2025 legislative session, as previously reported<\/a> by Community Impact.<\/p>\n

Other public school districts across the Greater Houston area\u2014such as Humble, New Caney<\/a>, Katy<\/a> and Tomball<\/a> ISDs\u2014have also filed for exemptions, as previously reported.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On May 14, Houston ISD\u2019s board of managers opted to request an exemption to a new state law…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[83607,107604,107605,56,58,1686,41854,107603,57,107606,107607,102696],"class_list":["post-294929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-hisd-meetings","tag-hisd-sb-546","tag-hisd-sb-546-seatbelts-for-school-buses","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-isd","tag-houston-isd-board-of-managers","tag-houston-isd-school-buses","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-seatbelt-bus-requirements","tag-kari-feinberg","tag-sb-546"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}