DSS Taking Taxpayers For A Ride
Taking lots of people for lots of rides, actually, and at an eye-popping annual cost of about $5-million for taxicab trips alone.
It’s taken local attorney and always-vigilant House Guest columnist Tom Ashcraft months to pry loose details on the copious amounts of loot the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services doled out for transportation in fiscal year 2009. The numbers are staggering and include: $2.3 million to Crown Cab Company (155,387 trips); $2.2 million to AA Prestige Taxi Service (171,575 trips); $434,015 to Southeast Transportation (14,469 trips); $343,542 for Taxi Shuttle Express (20,846); $294,089 to Charlotte Checker Cab Company (23,065 trips); $260,295 to A-1 Wheelchair Transport (8,443 trips); $254,255 to Dunstan Transportation (12,868 trips); $200,688 to Elite Transportation (12,587 trips): and $179,793 to American Wheelchair Transportation (8,237 trips).
In a recent e-mail to county commissioners, DSS Director Mary Wilson informs that the bulk of transportation costs, about 90 percent, is paid with state and federal funding grants, with a 10 percent match in county dollars. Cases of Medicaid transportation, for example, are 100-percent federally funded, while the state picks up 100 percent of the tab for elderly/disabled transportation and the Education Transportation Assistance program.
DSS transportation services for the elderly is fully funded with revenue from the half-cent sales tax for transit, and passengers pay a $1.50 fare for rides to destinations that include medical appointments, the grocery store, and work. Half-cent sales tax revenue is also used to fund 100 percent of “comprehensive community transportation”, which provides trips for the disabled to workshop/employment centers.
DSS also handles what’s labeled “rural general-purpose transportation”, where persons living outside the city limits without a bus stop near their homes are transported to and from destinations or to the city to access bus services. Passengers pay a $1.50 fare. The program is 90-percent funded by the state, with Mecklenburg chipping in 10 percent. The same funding ratio applies to transportation that supports the Senior Citizen Nutrition Program.
The DSS handles some transportation services with vehicles from its Mecklenburg Transportation System fleet, but Wilson acknowledges that “a significant portion” of trips is farmed out to taxicab companies. With a grim budget year looming, she predicts a substantive reduction in transportation expenditures.
From Wilson’s email to county commissioners:
“DSS is currently working in collaboration with Charlotte Area Transit systems (CATS) to (i) reduce costs through greater utilization of CATS fixed route bus service; and (ii) eliminate duplication of transportation services to persons with disabilities through greater coordination with CATS Special Transportation Services (STS). We believe this will ensure a more efficient, cost-effective delivery of service for all citizens of Mecklenburg County.”
Wonderful. The question, of course, is why hasn’t all that and more already been done? Bureaucratic rhetoric is one thing, action quite another. So far, Wilson has delivered much of the prior, little of the latter, and plenty of pricey cab rides.
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