Advisory council presses county to mark funds for transportation

The transit authority qualifies for a federal match, one council member said.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners are taking steps to address a recommendation from the Senior Citizens Advisory Council -- even if it's not the step the council wanted.
Advisory council members attended Tuesday's commissioners meeting, hoping to see a vote on a recommendation the council made last week: That $151,000 from the seniors levy voters approved last November go to the Niles-Trumbull Transit Authority. The levy generates $2.5 million annually.
That would allow the busing service to continue to offer senior citizen transportation the last five months of the year.
The matter was not addressed during the commissioners meeting, however.
Afterward, Commissioner Paul Heltzel said officials will approach NTTS to gather information and analyze NTTS operations and costs. Heltzel said it is not clear who will do the analysis.
Last week, Tom Harwood, chairman of the council's transportation committee, presented charts and graphs to the committee that showed NTTS provided 70 percent of the public transportation trips in the county and gave details on all of the transportation providers in the county.
Incomplete information
But Heltzel criticized the report for being incomplete because it did not offer a per-trip cost analysis.
Heltzel said a good way to compare costs would be to compare the county-run Office of Elderly Affairs with NTTS.
Early Tuesday, the advisory council's transportation committee met again, and this time it did have such a comparison, which showed the cost of on-demand medical transportation from the Office of Elderly Affairs being $45.75 per trip and a similar ride from NTTS being $31.71.
Harwood said NTTS is the only service in Trumbull County that would be able to provide the type of transportation that is needed. It is the only service that qualifies for the 40 percent match from the federal government that would be needed to provide rides to senior citizens all over the county for $2 per ride, he said.
For that to happen, NTTS would need to receive the entire $450,000 of the levy money each year, as had been promised by levy advocates during the campaign.
This would be matched by $300,000 in federal money, he said. Seniors levy advocates promised that some of the levy money would be used to provide $2 rides, Harwood said.
Commissioner Dan Polivka said after the commissioners' meeting that he supports giving the $151,000 to the NTTS to keep rides going through the end of 2006. Commissioner James Tsagaris said he hadn't formed an opinion.
Heltzel said it is possible the funding could be on the agenda for the Aug. 3 commissioners meeting.
Heltzel said he has reservations about giving large sums of money to NTTS because the service has not fulfilled promises it made to the county in the past couple of years, when the county has turned over hundreds of thousands of dollars for public transportation.
NTTS promised to secure matching money but has not done this, Heltzel said.
runyan@vindy.com