Transit District Seeks to Keep Subsidy for Senior Citizens

Orange County Transit District directors on Monday issued a last-minute plea to preserve a $900,000-a-year county subsidy that for 12 years has allowed senior citizens to ride the bus free or at reduced fares.

On a 4-1 vote, the directors urged the Board of Supervisors to maintain the subsidy--even though the federal program that has financed it is likely to be terminated.

The annual $900,000 grant from the county is scheduled to end in June with the county’s anticipated loss of federal revenue-sharing funds. However, the directors voted to seek at least a partial extension to preserve a program that they said is crucial for elderly citizens who may have no other way to get to the doctor, the grocery store or recreation centers.

Under the program, seniors do not pay the normal 75-cent fare. Instead, they pay 35 cents during morning and afternoon hours when the buses are most crowded and ride for free at other times. The subsidy has cost the county $6.4 million since it began in 1974.

Programs Face Cutoffs

The subsidy program is only one of a number of community assistance grants that the Board of Supervisors has paid for from the county’s annual $35-million revenue-sharing allocation. All of these programs face cutoffs if the program is eliminated in 1987 as anticipated.

While the prospects for renewed funding appear “dismal,” said Supervisor Ralph B. Clark, chairman of the Transit District board, “we can’t really throw in the sponge . . . particularly when you consider that to seniors, this transportation is probably the most important thing in their lives.”

However, Supervisor Roger R. Stanton argued strongly against the funding request, complaining that the county already has spent $6.4 million subsidizing bus fares when it could have used the money to provide more direct services to senior citizens, such as building new recreation centers or providing food to shut-ins.

Moreover, he said, the Transit District could offer the 280,000 senior citizens who ride the bus each month the same low fares it offers now without the county subsidy. The district is going to run the same number of routes and buses regardless of whether or not the elderly use them, and it costs no more to simply let the elderly hop aboard, he explained.

Inflating Revenue

Stanton charged that the district has been using the $900,000 annual subsidy to artificially inflate its fare-box revenues, which are required under state law to be at least 20% of operating costs.

“Thus, the Orange County Transit District, already one of the most heavily subsidized transit operators in the nation, has been subsidized by taxpayers in a roundabout way beyond what has otherwise appeared for many years to be the case,” he said.

In response, OCTD General Manager Jim Reichert said that the district counts the federal subsidy as fare-box revenue because it essentially means the county is picking up the fare for the senior citizen passenger. Even if the subsidies are not counted, he said, the district’s fare-box revenues will only drop from 26.2% to 25.1% of its operating costs.

Without the subsidy, Reichert said, the district may have to consider phasing in fare increases for senior citizens over a period of several years to bring them up to regular fare rates.

Reichert also questioned Stanton’s assertion that seniors could be offered free rides without the infusion of revenue-sharing funds.

“You could say that if you have a basic system in operation and you have available space, the incremental cost (of offering free bus rides to seniors) is nothing,” he said. “You could give the seniors free rides, you could give the Hispanics free rides, the school kids free rides. . . . But we’re looking at the revenue side, which is you need to have revenues in order to support that basic system.”

Offers Alternatives

In its request, the district is not asking for the full $900,000 allocation that it has received in past years. Rather, it presents the county with three options: a $500,000 grant of new revenue-sharing funds, should they be available, plus the estimated $375,000 that will be left in the revenue-sharing bus subsidy account at the end of this fiscal year in June; a similar request, except that the $500,000 would come from other county funding sources; or allowing the district to spend the remaining $375,000, which would allow the subsidy program to operate through November.

Stanton proposed that the directors not seek any additional subsidies while also reaffirming the policy of giving seniors free and reduced fares. But the motion died without a second, and Stanton drew a blast from Herg Eggett, the transportation committee chairman of the Orange County Senior Citizens Advisory Council.

“Using the transportation funds for other purposes (such as senior citizens centers) borders on the ridiculous. . . . How are people going to get there to use these programs?” Eggett complained.

Wants Guarantee

“If you can guarantee that the district will give us a continuation of free bus rides, I’ll sit down. But you won’t guarantee that. I resent you being against what we are trying to do.”

At that point, Stanton changed his proposal and sought to “guarantee” elderly riders a continuation of their free and reduced fares--without the subsidy from the county.

Yet that motion, too, found no support from other board members, many of whom quietly have acknowledged that some fare increases may be necessary without the county subsidy.

“You’re going to have to hang until the board (of supervisors) hears this,” Stanton told the half a dozen senior citizens in the hearing room. “You could have had your guarantee now.”