Out of 95 buses transporting students in Northeast Michigan this school year, 93% passed inspections, 1% received a yellow tag — meaning the bus is safe, but in unsatisfactory condition — and 6% received red tags, meaning those buses are not safe for students and the district must repair them before they can use them.

The Michigan State Police inspect every bus that transports a student annually, according to state law.

State Police data shows the number of buses tagged yellow or red fluctuates from year to year. Nearly 11% of Northeast Michigan’s school buses received a red tag during the 2016-17 school year, the highest in the last few years, according to data reviewed by The News.

Buses receive a red tag for a number of reasons, some more serious than others.

News Photo by Crystal Nelson Jesse Smith, mechanic with Alcona Community Schools, changes a windshield wiper on a bus in March at the district’s bus garage in Lincoln.

Atlanta Community Schools, for example, this year received a red tag when the foam in a bus seat split, leaving a top bar exposed, The News learned through State Police documents obtained through a Michigan Freedom of Information Act request.

Police red-tagged a Posen Consolidated Schools bus because of how a tie rod rotated, while Rogers City Area Schools received a red tag for an inoperable overhead flasher lamp, the documents show.

This school year, 100% of buses at Hillman Community Schools and Onaway Area Community Schools passed inspection. Posen, at 75%, had the smallest percentage of buses pass inspection, according to the State Police. Posen schools have four buses to transport students, so one red-tagged bus takes a quarter of its fleet out of circulation for repairs.

Atlanta Community Schools had one bus — that bus with the split seat foam, representing about 17% of the district’s buses — receive a red tag and a yellow tag during inspection.

Carl Seiter, superintendent of Atlanta and Hillman schools, said in an email to The News that the State Police issued the yellow tag on a bus that had warranty work due. The repairs were already scheduled at the time of inspection and the bus went to Grand Rapids for the work.

Alpena Public Schools had two buses — representing about 5% of the district’s fleet — tagged red, according to inspection data. One school bus had a bad tie rod, which connects steering mechanisms to the tires, and the other bus had a bad brake chamber, according to APS Superintendent Dave Rabbideau.

“When you run as many miles as we do on a daily and yearly basis, to have two red tags that were able to be fixed that day and for a small amount of money, I’d say that’s a pretty good outcome,” Rabbideau said.

Police red-tagged one Alcona Community Schools bus — representing about 8% of its total fleet — this year. Jesse Smith, Alcona mechanic, said the inspector discovered two bolts holding a seat down had broken loose.

While the inspector checked other buses, Smith said he repaired the seat and had the bus reinspected that same day. With the inspector present, Smith said, he can usually make repairs and have them reinspected.

“I haven’t been tagged for anything in the couple of years I’ve been here that couldn’t be fixed right away,” Smith said. “But, in the event that something major did happen, you have to schedule an appointment for them to come back. That school bus cannot transport children until the inspector has looked at it a second time to verify that the repair has taken place.”

Dean Transportation owns and operates school buses for the AMA ESD. Patrick Dean, vice president of the Lansing-based bus company, said in an email to The News that 11 buses passed inspection this year, while one bus received a yellow tag. Mechanics completed the repairs immediately and the State Police reinspected the bus, giving Dean a green tag.

Dean said in the email vehicle repairs vary in cost, depending on the nature of the issue identified.

Rabbideau, the Alpena superintendent, said it costs between $270 and $300 to fix both repairs in that district, while Seiter, superintendent in Atlanta and Hillman, said the district pays a mechanic $65 per hour on repairs.

In addition to annual inspections, mechanics perform routine inspections and bus drivers perform daily inspections before their route begins each day.

Smith, with Alcona schools, said he inspects each of the district’s buses every 30 days and Dean said drivers inspect buses daily, before each run.

Alcona frequently cycles its buses so drivers can drive other buses. Smith said a driver who drives the same bus all the time might not notice a change if it comes on slowly. However, drivers can pick up on those things during the rotations. He said he recently changed a tire as a result of that practice.

For mechanics like Smith, maintaining the district’s fleet is more than a job, it’s a personal mission.

“I don’t ever want to see us on the news for having something terrible happen,” he said. “I take my job pretty seriously, when it comes to the safety of my job and what I’m responsible for.”