McKinney ISD faces $6 million bus seat belt mandate cost
McKinney ISD was told the seat belt mandate could cost nearly $6 million, or about $32,000 a bus to retrofit, as the district faces a nearly $4 million budget gap.
A new state seat belt mandate could force McKinney ISD to spend nearly $6 million on buses, a hit district leaders said could squeeze transportation service and other priorities just as the district faces a nearly $4 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2026-27.
Assistant Superintendent of Business Operations Dennis Womack laid out the costs at the district’s May 18 board meeting, saying McKinney ISD does not have enough money set aside to cover compliance with Senate Bill 546. The law, passed during the 89th Texas Legislature, requires every bus owned or operated by a school district to have three-point seat belts for every passenger. Womack said there was no additional funding attached to the mandate, leaving McKinney ISD to weigh retrofitting its existing fleet, replacing buses on a faster timeline or finding another source of money.
The district’s presentation showed the scale of the problem. McKinney ISD has 179 buses, and 38 of them do not have three-point seat belts. Most of those buses have two-point lap belts, while only a very small number have no seat belts at all. Replacing the buses that do not meet the new standard would cost just under $6 million, which works out to roughly $158,000 per bus. Retrofitting those buses would cost about $1.2 million, or about $32,000 per bus.
That spending would land in a transportation system already moving thousands of students each day. McKinney ISD said Durham School Services uses 155 buses in the district, including 84 regular routes and 42 special education routes, and about 10,600 students are scheduled for transportation daily. District leaders said the seat belt mandate is not just a safety upgrade, but an operational decision that could affect how McKinney funds buses, maintenance and other day-to-day services.
The timing is also tight. Under Texas Education Agency guidance, districts that make a budget limitation determination must submit estimated seat belt costs by May 29, 2026, through the agency’s Sentinel system. TEA’s reporting window for SB 546 runs from Nov. 11, 2025, through May 29, 2026, and districts that cannot comply must publicly report how many buses have no seat belts, lap belts and three-point belts, along with the estimated cost to equip each bus. Full compliance is due Sept. 1, 2029.
Trustee Larry Jagours criticized the requirement during the meeting, calling it “ludicrous” for the state to impose the change without funding it. With a prior-year deficit of $10 million and another multimillion-dollar shortfall projected ahead, McKinney ISD’s bus seat belt mandate is likely to become a budgeting fight, not just a safety upgrade.
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