INDIANAPOLIS — Since the state capped spending on public transportation six years ago, Catch-A-Ride in rural southeast Indiana has scrambled to keep up service for elderly, disabled and car-less passengers who have no other way to get around.
The Greensburg-based non-profit has raised rates, cut routes and rolled back service to offset higher gas prices and labor costs.
That’s led to fewer riders, which means less passenger revenue.
Catch-A-Ride director Erin Thomas says demand is still there. The door-to-door pickup service, which works a six-county region, turns away an average of 10 people a day. Thomas worries about them since there are no taxi services in the small communities she serves.
“We’re afraid to go out and market ourselves,” she said. “We don’t want to offer something we can’t deliver.”
Public transportation systems across Indiana have similar concerns, which are heightened now that Gov. Mike Pence is proposing less funding for recipients of the state’s public mass transportation fund.
In his $31 billion, two-year budget proposal, Pence asks for a 3 percent cut in mass transit spending.
That amounts to shaving about $1.3 million from a $42.5 million annual line item. Pence’s staff says the reduction is part of an across-the-board cut for most agencies, needed to protect the state’s $2 billion surplus.
But it's too much for transit advocates who say six years of flat funding have taken a toll on communities that can least afford it. For Catch-A-Ride, the state provides 45 percent of its $1.6 million annual budget.
“There’s a downward spiral when you don’t have enough resources going into the system,” said Kim Irwin, spokeswoman for the Indiana Citizens Alliance for Transit, which is calling for an increase in mass transit spending.
Overall demand is going up, they argue, even as some systems lose riders. The alliance cites a 2013 report by the state Department of Transportation that shows a 15 percent hike in public transit ridership over the last decade.
In Anderson, Sam Pellegrino, general manager of the City of Anderson Transit System (CATS), said any cut in state funding would be a concern, but a 3 percent decrease wouldn't be devastating. Anderson currently receives about $354,000 to help finance bus system. A 3 percent cut would be a little over $10,600.
Most likely, Pellegrino said, that money would have to come out of the bus system's maintenance account. Because Anderson recently purchased several new buses, the potential loss in state funding might not be felt since the new equipment would require less maintenance.
Getting on board
The Indiana Citizens Alliance for Transit includes an array of advocacy groups for the elderly, poor and disabled. Its members also include business groups, such as the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.
That's caught the attention of some House Republicans, who not only oppose Pence’s proposed cut but want an increase in mass transit spending.
Rep. Randy Truitt, R-West Lafayette, co-authored a bill that puts $60 million into the mass transit fund in each of the next two fiscal years. That’s about 45 percent more than what’s in the governor’s proposed budget.
Truitt calls himself a fiscal conservative but argues that the money is needed to protect a critical system.
“Some people call this a subsidy, I see it as an investment,” he said.
Irwin noted that flat-lining the mass transit budget has resulted in fewer dollars from the federal government in many communities. That’s because the federal funds require a match from state and local sources. Local governments, hit hard by the property tax caps of 2008, haven’t been able to make up the difference.
Truitt’s interest in the issue was piqued when a hospital and businesses in his district, located far off their city’s bus service routes, complained about their trouble filling low-level jobs because applicants couldn't get to work. The city’s bus system said it didn’t have the money to expand.
“Employers have got to get people who are willing and interested in working for them, but they’re not going to have much luck if those people don’t show up for work because they can’t get there,” he said.
Truitt’s bill hasn’t gotten a hearing, but Republicans leaders have indicated they will oppose Pence’s call for a decrease in mass transit funding. The matter will likely arise again early next week when the House Ways and Means Committee works on the budget.
Mass transit dollars were first frozen in 2009, when the General Assembly stopped using sales tax revenues to fund public transportation. Sales tax revenues were plunging at the time, due to the recession, but have since recovered.
“It happened at a time when the state needed all the money we could get,” Truitt said. “But what happens here sometimes is that decisions get made for short-term reasons but we never go back and really fix the problem.”
Herald Bulletin reporter Stuart Hirsch contributed to this story.