Frontenac County Council still split over transportation 

by Jeff Green

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Members of Frontenac County Council did more hand wringing last year over $74,000 in spending on public transportation than they did for the $10 million Fairmount Home and Frontenac Land Ambulance budgets combined.

This year's budget may feature a similar kind of debate.

After receiving a report by consultant Rob Wood, who has been working with a county-funded transportation collaborative over the past year in an attempt to come up with a transportation plan for the entire county, county council wasn't sure what to do with it.

The two major players in transportation, the Rural VISIONS Centre in Sydenham, and the Rural Routes Transportation Service (a program of Northern Frontenac Community Services) in Sharbot Lake, have agreed in principle to work together to develop a consistent model for the entire county, which was something that county council had been pushing last year.

Both agencies arrange rides with volunteer drivers, mostly to help people access health and social services. In many cases funds to pay mileage for the volunteers come from social agencies such as Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program, or the riders themselves.

In fiscal 2007, Rural Routes provided 8,060 one-way trips travelling 290,000 kilometres, and Rural VISIONS provided 2,300 trips travelling 91,000 kilometres.

Wood’s report talked at length about the steps that have been taken to put together a single service for the entire county.

After he worked intensively throughout the summer and came up with a tentative plan, the Province of Ontario informed Rob Wood that one of the crucial pieces of funding, a grant from the Ontario Gas Tax rebate program that would pay 75 cents for each dollar that Frontenac County invested in the program, would not be available after all.

“It caused us to reconsider our plans when were informed in September that the province will only fund rides that are delivered in fully accessible vehicles, of which there currently are none among the agencies that deliver rides in Frontenac County,” Woods told county council last week in presenting his report.

He added that the possibility of purchasing or leasing such a vehicle is something that the new transportation collaborative that is being developed is considering.

The report envisions a budget in 2009 for a combined transportation service of $287,000, of which $80,000 would come from Frontenac County. This money would fund administration and some of the volunteer mileage. $152,000 is budgeted to come from clients themselves or agencies that fund rides for those clients at a rate of $0.40 per kilometre.

In receiving the report, Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski said, “I’m very pleased with the report. I’m pleased with everything you’ve done to this date”.

North Frontenac Mayor Ron Maguire said it is a “good report,” but said “I’m just wondering about the financial operations, the management, how the staffing will take place, etc. going forward”.

"There are many details to be worked out, and there have already been some delicate negotiations. Both agencies understood that for this to happen some jobs might be affected, and we are not expecting to expand staffing or staffing costs,” replied Rob Wood.

“This must remain a situation where the county is backing a community-led program, because it is heavily based on local volunteers,” Maguire added.

Frontenac Islands Mayor Jim Vanden Hoek said, “I don’t fully comprehend the report. I support the $80,0000 going into our budget for discussion purposes. That is only fair and wise. But there are things here that need firming up. I think we should be careful until we can firm up where some of these funding sources are.”

South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison asked about some of the details in the budget, and said, “I’m still unclear about some of these numbers.”

County Council had no problem receiving the report, or in placing $80,000 among the early draft budget numbers that were approved for budget discussion in January earlier in the meeting. The sticking point came in a motion which called for county council to “accept the report in principle” and consider all the issues it raises early in 2009.

“I’d like to see those words ‘accept in principle’ removed from the motion,” said Mayor Davison.

Neither mayors Gutowski nor Maguire thought the deletion was necessary, but faced with the motion being defeated entirely, they reluctantly agreed.

When contacted later Rob Wood said he understood the reluctance that mayors Vanden Hoek and Davison expressed. “Most of what they were saying comes down to due diligence on their part. I think there are two things. First, we must do our homework and explain some of the numbers in the budget better, and second there are some assumptions in the budget that must be ‘firmed up’ as the mayors said”.

So, sometime at the beginning of 2009, Frontenac County Council will once again work on finding a solution to the thorny issue of transportation.

It is expected that Rob Wood will continue on as a consultant to the process for the time being.