News File Photo Alpena school buses are seen in this 2018 Alpena News file photo.

ALPENA — Eight of 93 school buses in Northeast Michigan were rated as unsafe in inspections last school year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Michigan State Police.

Michigan law requires the repair of all red-tagged buses before they can be used for passenger service.

Public and private school buses are inspected quarterly to make sure they’re safe to be on the road.

Posen Consolidated Schools Superintendent Michelle Wesner said the two buses red-tagged by the State Police are not used for transporting kids. One of the two buses is a parts bus but had to be inspected because it’s on school property. The other bus has a dead engine and just sits at the school, Wesner said Tuesday.

“Those are stationary buses, and there’s no need for them,” Wesner said.

Alcona Community Schools Superintendent Dan O’Connor said the two red-tagged buses in his district had rust and rot issues, nothing mechanical, so it was an age issue with those buses.

The district is slowly getting rid of its buses from the late 1990s and early 2000s, O’Connor said.

“It’s just the way buses were designed (and) that the undercarriage underneath will eventually deteriorate,” O’Connor said. “We were able to repair those buses and get them approved and back on the road.”

Alcona has been working the past few years to purchase new buses and get rid of old buses that have between 150,000 and 200,000 miles on them.

“Our school buses are aging, there’s no other way to put it,” O’Connor said. “That’s been on our radar. We’ve been working on replacing them over the past four years and have been doing so.”

Alpena Public Schools, the Alpena-Montmorency-Alcona Educational Service District, Hillman Community Schools, and Onaway Area Community Schools each had one red-tagged bus, according to the report.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.