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Trumbull officials taking new steps to ensure accountability from senior-citizen-levy bus company
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners say they have had their senior-citizens levy administrator put some new “accountability measures” in place to ensure that rides being provided to county seniors by Community Bus Service of Youngstown meet the levy rules.
Diane Siskowic-Jurkovic, senior levy administrator, said she has spent five days over the past three or four weeks looking at documentation from CBS to determine whether the rides CBS charges to the county’s Trumbull Transit System for reimbursement are justified.
She said she has some “findings that are in question,” and she is waiting for a response to the findings.
She said one example is CBS being paid for rides given to personal-care attendants who assist their senior-citizen clients during rides but don’t pay a fare.
Another is a woman getting rides several times per week into Trumbull County from Canfield Township. Siskowic-Jurkovic said she doesn’t understand why a bus providing Trumbull County rides would be picking someone up in Mahoning County.
Siskowic-Jurkovic said there are no major discrepancies in the documentation, but she’s only reviewed the past six months of rides so far.
When Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa asked Siskowic-Jurkovic why she had only recently started reviewing documentation for CBS rides under the senior citizens levy, she said she was “never given the ability to go in and review these records.”
Cantalamessa said it appears Siskowic-Jurkovic has received some resistance from CBS to her inquiries.
Terry Thomas, president of CBS, said the way CBS handles personal-care attendants is governed by federal transportation rules, not levy rules.
The Canfield Township example relates to CBS having a contract to provide rides through the Trumbull senior-citizen levy but also having funding through other sources, Thomas said. In this case, the rider is disabled and gets on the bus in Girard, he said.
“There’s been no resistance. We supplied answers to the transit board” and its administrator, Mark Hess, because the transit board is CBS’ customer, Thomas said.
Commissioner Frank Fuda said he believes CBS should be as accountable to the senior-levy rules as the senior-citizen centers in the county, wherein the service provider only gets paid when “legitimate seniors” sign a form indicating that they received services.
The discussion came up at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting because Dave Mirkin, president of Comfort Keepers of Youngstown, raised questions about why CBS didn’t appear to have to adhere to the same rules as companies such as his, which also have a contract to provide services under the senior-citizen levy.
The Trumbull County Senior Services Levy is a five- year, three-quarter-mill property-tax levy that began in 2005. It funds programs to enhance the wellbeing of county adults who are age 60 and older. County voters passed a five-year renewal in 2010.