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Niles-Trumbull busing hinges on levy renewal
BY JORDAN COHEN
NILES
A year-end report for 2009 shows the Niles-Trumbull Transit System on solid financial footing, but that could change if the 0.75-mill Trumbull Senior Services levy renewal fails in Tuesday’s primary.
“Without it, we don’t have a bus system,” said Niles Mayor Ralph Infante. The mayor was among a number of Trumbull County elected officials who attended a breakfast meeting Friday in which the report was released.
The system, organized in 2003, primarily serves senior citizens, disabled adults, students and, on occasion, the general public throughout Trumbull County. Unlike other transit services, NiTTS will pick up and take passengers from and to any location.
“It’s curb to curb,” said Infante who was described as the catalyst behind the service’s creation by several speakers. “I believe we are the only one in the state of Ohio with demand response.”
According to its 2009 figures, NiTTS provided more than 75,000 rides last year, an increase of 26,000 above 2008. Most of of the riders come from Warren.
The system received $580,000 in 2009 as its portion of the $2.7 million raised by the senior levy. Mark Hess, Niles grant and development coordinator, said federal assistance is limited to 40 percent of the system’s budget because NiTTS neither owns nor garages its buses, but contracts them from a provider. Hess said the federal share jumps to 80 percent for companies that own and garage their vehicles.
“We have to work to keep it small because there’s not enough money to make it big,” Hess said.
According to its financial figures, NiTTS’ expenditures rose to more than $1.9 million in 2009, an $800,000 increase above the previous year, but the federal government came through for the transit service Friday. NiTTS received $900,000 in federal funds. With help from contracts and grants from other state and local sources, NiTTS wound up with a surplus of $37,000 in funds that it carried over into this year.
Nearly every speaker, however, warned about the importance of passing the senior renewal levy and what it means to the transit system and its thousands of riders.