A certification needed to legally operate district school buses may by the latest casualty of Michigan’s budget woes.
The Michigan State Police Motor Carrier Division is responsible for inspecting and certifying the safety of more than 17,000 school buses each year. The funding for the program is part of the K-12 school aid budget. The recent budget, OK’d by lawmakers without money for the inspections and signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm last week, nixed funding for the $1.4 million program.
The 11 inspectors, hired by the Michigan State Police to inspect buses statewide, were notified of layoffs earlier this month. School buses are checked out by the Michigan State Police inspectors once each year between Sept.1 and Aug. 31.
Shanon Banner, Michigan State Police spokesperson, said there’s a great amount of uncertainty regarding just what the school districts are going to do now.
‘The Michigan State Police are required to inspect the state’s school buses each year,? said Banner. ‘There’s no money for the inspections since the state constitution prohibits funding without appropriation. If the district operates the buses, they are now in violation.?
Banner said last year 17,085 buses were inspected, with 89 percent of the vehicles passing the MSP requirements. A red-tagged bus is immediately placed out-of-service and cannot be used to transport students until the defect is repaired. Vehicles identified with less serious safety defects receive a yellow-tag that requires the defects to be repaired within 60 days.
According to MSP records, 264 buses, or 1.6 percent, were yellow tagged, while 1,606, or 9.4 percent, received red tags in 2008-09.
Betty Martin, Brandon School District Transportation Director, said the 37 district buses that traveled 438,613 miles in the 2008-09 school year were inspected on Oct. 19 and all passed.
‘If our buses were not safe, they would not be on the road,? said Martin. ‘Our machinists go through the same inspection the state police do when the buses come in for service. We heard this was going to happen earlier this summer’some of the suggestions are the district is going to hire their own inspectors, or the district mechanics were going to be certified to take care of the inspection.?
Similarly, Cindy Forsyth, Goodrich School District Transportation Director said the 16 district buses along the the 10 ISD buses were inspected and passed in July. During the 2008-09 school year, district buses traveled 224,701 miles.
‘We do the same bus inspection using the same manual the state police do,’she said. ‘Right now every time there’s a scheduled oil and lube, we inspect.?