2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · Senate bill

SB546

SB546 changes Texas school-bus seat-belt requirements, but does not require every bus to be retrofitted immediately.

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Official caption: Relating to seat belts on buses that transport children.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists Senate author(s): Menéndez. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

SB546 changes Texas school-bus seat-belt requirements, but does not require every bus to be retrofitted immediately.
Two exceptions remain in the amended rule: a school board determines its budget does not allow purchase of a bus with the required belts, or installing them would void the bus warranty.
District boards using the budget exception had to submit a report to the Texas Education Agency and present it at a public board meeting by the end of the 2025–2026 school year.
Districts may accept public or private gifts, grants and donations to implement the requirements.

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What does it do?

SB546 changes Texas school-bus seat-belt requirements, but does not require every bus to be retrofitted immediately. It removes the blanket exception for model-year 2017 and older buses from the three-point seat-belt rule. The rule covers school, school-activity, multifunction school-activity and school-chartered buses operated by or contracted for a school district to transport children, with a belt for each passenger including the driver. Final law, Section 1.

Two exceptions remain in the amended rule: a school board determines its budget does not allow purchase of a bus with the required belts, or installing them would void the bus warranty. The act says districts need not comply with the amended seat-belt subsection before September 1, 2029. That date is not a promise that every bus will then have three-point belts regardless of the exceptions. Exceptions and delayed compliance.

District boards using the budget exception had to submit a report to the Texas Education Agency and present it at a public board meeting by the end of the 2025–2026 school year. The report counts buses with no belts, two-point belts and three-point belts, and estimates the cost of equipping buses without the required three-point belts. TEA must collect the information, calculate statewide financial assistance needed for full compliance, and make a summary available to the governor, lieutenant governor, House speaker and legislators by January 1, 2027. These reporting provisions expire January 1, 2028; that expiration does not repeal the seat-belt rule. Temporary reporting requirements.

Districts may accept public or private gifts, grants and donations to implement the requirements. The act itself does not appropriate retrofit money. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025, separately from the 2029 compliance date. Funding permission and dates; Official history.

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill would have required at least two-point belts when a board found three-point belts infeasible in light of its budget and student needs and approved that finding publicly. The Senate substitute dropped that fallback, kept a budget exception, added the warranty exception, delayed compliance until 2029 and required district/TEA reporting. It removed the old wording requiring a public vote on the budget determination, while requiring the report to be presented publicly. Introduced proposal; Senate substitute.

The sole indexed floor amendment, offered by Menéndez and adopted April 22, set the district-report deadline at the end of 2025–2026, the TEA deadline at January 1, 2027 and the reporting expiration at January 1, 2028. All survived in the engrossed, House committee and enrolled texts. There are no indexed House amendments. Complete adopted amendment; Amendment index; Five text versions.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Children and drivers are the intended safety beneficiaries of broader three-point-belt coverage. Districts may face equipment and reporting work, while the budget and warranty exceptions and compliance delay limit the immediate mandate. The law does not establish how many injuries will be prevented or guarantee a grant to any district. Coverage, exceptions and funding provisions.

The latest posted fiscal note, April 11 for the Senate substitute, anticipates no state fiscal implication, assumes implementation costs can be absorbed with existing resources, and identifies district reporting duties without estimating total retrofit costs. The earlier introduced-bill note said districts might incur seat-belt equipment costs, but addressed a different proposal. Neither is a quantified appropriation or a final statewide cost calculation; the later floor amendment added deadlines after the latest posted note. Latest posted fiscal note; Introduced-bill fiscal note.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.