State regulators have filed a formal complaint against First Student, Inc., an Ohio-based company that provides transportation services in several Washington public school districts, including Vashon Island School District (VISD).

The complaint, if approved by Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC), could result in a total of $396,000 in fines for hundreds of safety and procedural violations by First Student.

In mid-February, UTC staff members announced they had identified new and repeated safety violations by the charter bus company during a routine follow-up to a 2019 staff investigation and penalty assessment.

The UTC had previously issued a $23,700 penalty against the bus company, suspending $10,000 of the penalty if the company met certain conditions and avoided committing additional violations for two years. However, UTC staff followed up and found that First Student hadn’t met these conditions.

Of the 634 violations of vehicle and driver safety requirements by First Student from January 2020 to April 2021, identified by UTC staff, 396 were acute, critical, or repeated.

Based on staff’s amended investigation, UTC staff are now requesting that the commission impose the previously suspended $10,000 penalty and consider assessing up to the maximum allowable penalty amount for those 396 violations.

A hearing will take place on March 22 to address the matter.

First Student could also be prohibited from entering into bus-chartering contracts with Washington school districts if the UTC approves its staff’s recommendation to downgrade First Students’ safety rating from “satisfactory” to “conditional.”

In its investigation, UTC examined operations at seven locations of First Student including Seattle, Tacoma, Rochester, Chattaroy, Colville, Vashon and Tenino.

Investigators found that the company had failed to give referral and education information to multiple employees who had a positive controlled substance test and had also failed to ensure that drivers had an equal chance of being selected for random controlled substance and alcohol testing.

The investigation also found in multiple cases that the company did not have applications for drivers’ employment on file and had failed to investigate other drivers’ backgrounds.

In conducting its investigation, UTC staff looked at a sampling of records pertaining to drivers at each of the seven locations examined in the report.

Emilie Brown, media and communications manager at UTC, said it was likely that the sampling of Vashon’s operations were very small in comparison to those of larger districts.

The investigations report, obtained by The Beachcomber in a public records request, lists violations according to names of drivers but does not specify the location of their employment — information that Brown said UTC could also not readily provide.

Matt Sullivan, VISD’s executive director of business and operations, said that he had been told by Vashon’s First Student location manager, and the area general manager, that none of the complaints outlined in the report pertained to employees working on Vashon. He also said that VISD has a perfect track record from Washington State Patrol safety inspections on all of its vehicles and buses.

Overall, the investigation did not pertain to First Student’s operations in busing students to and from home to school, but rather, to the company’s charter operations, which include transporting students on field trips, sports outings or other special events — operations that fall under the jurisdiction of regulation by the UTC.

However, according to Sullivan, all of First Students’ vehicles and drivers on Vashon are eligible to be used for both daily busing and charter service — though he said that whenever possible, the district engages volunteers, coaches and employees to drive students to extracurricular events and activities.

VISD has contracted with First Student since the early 1990s, said Sullivan, adding that the district’s current five-year contract with the company, which runs through 2024, is for $900,000 annually — a cost that is fully funded through state apportionment.

Vashon superintendent Slade McSheehy, asked to comment on VISD’s work with First Student in light of the UTC investigation, did not address the investigation and instead focused on his gratitude toward local bus drivers and First Student operations during the pandemic.

“I celebrate the work our bus drivers and transportation team do each and every day when safely transporting our students to and from school,” McSheehy said, in an emailed statement. “COVID has presented many challenges to our transportation team over the last two school years. Our driver’s safety record during COVID, no known COVID transmission events, speaks volumes about their safety protocols and their commitment to keeping our students, families, and community in good health.”

In the wake of the complaint, the Seattle School District — which has long used First Student as its transportation carrier — announced that it would reopen a bidding process to companies interested in providing bus service to the district.

Prior to the decision to reopen bidding, First Student had been in contract negotiations to renew its longtime contract with the Seattle district, now worth $40 million annually.

“We were apprised of the UTC action this week and we are in the process of reviewing how it might impact our relationship with the district’s primary transportation vendor,” Tim Robinson, a spokesperson for the school district, told The Seattle Times.

First Student owns 797 vehicles and employs 742 commercial drivers in Washington.