Some of Coeur d'Alene School District's buses will have seat belts starting this fall.

The Coeur d'Alene School Board unanimously voted Monday to only buy school buses with three-point shoulder harness seat belts from here on out. The board also decided to retrofit seat belts into six existing school buses.

“I feel like this is the right thing to do,” Trustee Tom Hearn told the Press. “I'm willing to be reasonable and gradual as this moves ahead.”

Hearn brought the idea of putting seat belts in buses to the school board late last year.

The topic resurfaced at the board's January meeting when Hearn spoke passionately about needing seat belts on buses — particularly the ones that go on interstates, go up and down steep and/or slick roads and carry sports teams across the state in bad weather.

“I think in 10 or 20 years, people are going to look back and say, 'You didn't have seat belts on buses?'” Hearn said. “I think this is the way it's headed nationally.”

Board members decided it would be better financially to gradually implement seat belts on school buses so the district can work out any kinks that might arise. The board also requested the district get a legal opinion about concerns with having seat belts in school buses.

The only real negative of putting seat belts in buses, most board members agreed, is the cost.

A new school bus normally costs the district $100,000. A school bus with seat belts, the district estimates, will cost about $110,000.

However, Brian Wallace, the district's director of finance and operations, said the last time the district bought new buses, it was able to get competitive bids for a lower price.

Wallace hopes something similar happens again so the district can get the six new school buses with seat belts for close to $100,000 each.

Retrofitting six buses with the three-point shoulder harnesses, Wallace said, would cost $102,000 — retrofitting seat belts into buses costs more because the process requires dismantling and reassembling each seat frame.

The board decided the costs will be covered by the $32 million ($16 million a year for two years) supplemental levy the district is putting to the voters in March. The levy is $1 million per year more than the current levy, specifically for updating the district's bus fleet, replacing English & Language Arts textbook/curriculum, and maintaining current programs based on district growth.

“We won't have final cost on the buses, textbooks and curricular materials until we put out a request for proposal and receive formal bids,” Board Chair Casey Morrisroe said. “At this point we are working with estimates so I'm hopeful the bids will come in slightly better. If costs end up higher than estimated, then we will figure that out as we build our 2017-18 budget.”

The retrofitted buses will be ready for the beginning of the 2017-18 school year. The new buses will be ordered this fall and won't be delivered to the district until spring 2018.