Due to budget constraints, far fewer school districts in Michigan may get annual visits from state school bus inspectors.

After seeing the inspection program funding cut from $1.4 million in 2010 to $421,000 in the current fiscal year, inspectors are slated to only visit schools with a history of poor bus inspections, according to the state police traffic safety division, which operates the inspection unit. This is a frightening future for many districts, especially for the parents, with some districts sometimes seeing as much as 45 percent of their fleets failing the first round of annual inspections.

The 2010 round of annual inspections were completed this past August, with members of the state's School Bus Inspection Program completing a 198-point inspection on each bus. According to a recent interview with Shanon Banner, spokeswoman for state police, state police officials are hoping that state legislators will introduce and pass legislation that would transfer the responsibility for inspecting the buses to school districts instead.

The program has cut the number of inspectors from 15 to four with the plan to only inspect districts with a number of "red tagged" school buses in past inspections since the beginning of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.