REGION Shuttle service seeks more funds

Two public transportation agencies disagree on how to divide federal funds.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- The Federal Transit Administration is ready to release a $240,000 allocation to the Shenango Valley Shuttle Service, but the Mercer County Regional Council of Governments, which runs the service, wants more.
James DeCapua, COG executive director, said the shuttle service got $410,000 last year and he'd like to see a number a bit closer to that amount.
The problem is that Mercer County no longer stands alone as a metropolitan service area when it comes to getting FTA grant money to run operations.
Because of declining populations, the FTA linked Mercer County with the Youngstown-Warren metropolitan area for funding purposes beginning last year, he said.
Before the link, Mercer County was getting about $409,000 in annual FTA funds for its shuttle service, and the Western Reserve Transit Authority was getting about $2.9 million. After the two areas were merged, the FTA total funding allocation dropped to only $2.7 million, DeCapua said.
WRTA got about $2.3 million of that last year, and the shuttle service got $410,000.
The two agencies haven't been able to work out a disbursement plan acceptable to Mercer County on this year's funding, DeCapua said.
What's causing delay
DeCapua said he was frustrated by the fact that the FTA had said no funds would be paid out until the local transit operations had an agreement in place designating where the money would go.
WRTA got its disbursement released for this year but no agreement has been negotiated, he said.
James Ferraro, WRTA executive director, said his agency wasn't initially aware such an agreement was required and found out about it later. An agreement will have to be in place before next year's funds are disbursed, he said.
The WRTA first offered Mercer County $202,000 for this year, but, after that number was flatly rejected, came up with a $240,000 figure, Ferraro said.
He noted that the FTA has now determined that is a fair amount and is prepared to release those funds to Mercer County.
Ferraro said WRTA has already drawn down $1.57 million for operations this year. The remainder of the $2.7 million, minus what goes to Mercer County, will also go to WRTA for capital projects, he said.
DeCapua said he has also been informed that the FTA is ready to release $240,000 to Mercer County, but he's hoping to persuade WRTA to agree to "a little bit more" plus provide a loan of about $35,000 from the remaining FTA funds to cover some capital projects.
Mercer County would agree to pay that loan back out of next year's allocation, he said.
DeCapua believes the money crunch is a temporary situation that should be resolved with increased FTA funding next year.
Explanation
The shuttle service, as a rural transportation provider, was never required to submit annual statistics to the FTA on population served, population density and passenger revenue miles. WRTA, as a metro service area, did provide that data.
The shuttle service has begun doing it, but those statistics weren't part of the package when the two service areas were linked together last year.
The result was that the funding for the expanded area was based only on WRTA statistics, resulting in a lower total allocation, DeCapua said.
Mercer County's numbers will be counted for next year's allocations, and DeCapua predicted that should boost the total FTA funds closer to the $2.9 million the two areas were getting as separate entities two years ago.
Ferraro isn't so optimistic.
He's not sure the Mercer County numbers will result in any increase and the funding issue is likely to be further complicated by the anticipated addition of the 1-year-old Niles-Trumbull Transit Service to the metropolitan service area, he said.
That would result in three transit operations' trying to negotiate an agreement on how to divvy up what might not be a much larger pot of FTA funds, he said.
gwin@vindy.com