DSS Curbs Taxicab Rides
Faced with a budget crunch that is cutting into operations across the board, the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services is scuttling its years-long practice of using taxicabs to provide transportation for senior citizens and Medicaid-eligible clients.
Beginning next month, a majority of those DSS clients will be required to use Charlotte Area Transit System bus and rail service as their primary means of transportation. The shift could realize a cost-savings that totals into the millions, while setting a future course that permanently changes how the DSS provides transportation for thousands of residents.
Last year alone, the agency spent about $6.5 million on contracted transportation services, with a staggering $5 million of the total going for taxicab rides. Those funding levels were no longer possible to sustain given current economic conditions, said Rodney Adams, director of the Services for Adults Division of the DSS.
“The money is just not there to support the programs as we have in the past,” he said.
By way of example, the agency this year budgeted $532,000, down from $1.1 million, for transportation provided to eligible seniors (60 years and older) to destinations that include medical appointments, the grocery store and work. The majority of those trips were previously provided by contracted taxicab rides, at a cost of about $16 per one-way trip, with clients paying only $1.50 fare for the rides. Compare that to a $10 monthly bus pass that will cover most of those same type trips starting next month.
“If we didn’t go this route, the dollars we have budgeted would have been expended by mid-November,” Adams said, “and we would have had no money left for transportation services for seniors.”
Funding for the DSS to provide transportation for the elderly comes from revenue generated by the half-cent sales tax for transit. Because of a quirk in an interlcoal agreement signed by participating municipalities when the Metropolitan Transit Commission was formed, the DSS used its share of half-cent sales tax revenue to pay for contracted services, in effect taxicab rides, to provide transportation for the elderly, Adams said.
With the new system in place, the majority of seniors who receive transportation services from the DSS will be able to purchase a $10 monthly ride pass from CATS, discounted from the regular $36 charge for seniors. The DSS will pay the balance using revenue it receives from the half-cent sales tax for transit.
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