Officials mull supporting WRTA sales tax

YOUNGSTOWN — Officials from the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services met Wednesday with Mahoning County commissioners and Western Reserve Transit Authority officials to discuss the WRTA’s attempt to put a 0.25-percent sales tax on the ballot in March for countywide transportation.

WRTA officials are seeking backing from the commissioners for putting the request on the ballot, but commissioners were undecided on whether to give that support.

Judee Genetin, acting director of the JFS, said the loss in September of some of WRTA’s busing routes on weekends and evenings has added about $20,000 per month to their cost of providing transportation help to clients who need rides to help them hold down jobs.

“It can’t continue,” she said of the higher costs, which she estimated are around $800 per month per client for taxi or van-type transportation, compared with the cost of a monthly bus ticket from WRTA of $38.

The number of clients using WRTA bus passes dropped from 114 to 60 between January and October, Genetin said, because of WRTA’s route reductions.

Overall, the JFS spends about $4 million a year on such transportation, one of the highest amounts of any JFS in the state, she said. Because the JFS spends so much on transportation, it has to cut other services, she added.