Capacity Crowd Attends ASC Public Hearing

April 22, 2008 (Portsmouth)- A capacity crowd attended a public hearing today (Tuesday) held by the Scioto County Commissioners to voice their concerns about proposed service changes for Access Scioto County.

According to ASC Coordinator Larry Mullins, “ASC is in financial trouble”. “The basic problem is expense are up and revenue is down”. According to Mullins the main reason for the increase in expenses is increasing fuel costs.

“With no little or no additional funds available from the Commissioners or from our State and Federal Grants we have no option but to cut service in order to reduce operating costs”, Mullins said.

“We regret having to cut our service that we have worked so hard to improve during the past ten years, however since there is no local money available to help offset the increasing operating costs we have no alternative but to reduce services”, Mullins said.

Mullins introduced several proposed service changes for consideration by the Commissioners who will have the final say in what changes will be made if any.

Some proposals being considered by the Commissioners include:

Elimination of Saturday service

Reducing the service area

Increase fares

Reduce operating days and hours

Limit service to outlaying areas of the county to certain days

Elimination of all special and out of town trips and

closing all county holidays

According to Commissioner Skip Riffe, “There are no easy answers to this problem and no immediate decision will be made about the proposed service cuts until careful consideration of all the options has been made”.

“Until then the service will continue to operate as usual”, said Riffe. 

ASC operates under the auspices of the Commissioners and is funded by State and Federal grant funds and through contracts with the Scioto County Job and Family Services.

Because of this funding ASC has not had to receive any financial assistance from the Commissioners since 2000.

ASC 2008 First Quarter Report

Here is a look at Access Scioto County’s operating data for the first quarter of 2008:

Overall ASC’s expenses for the 2008 first quarter were up 12% from last year.

Fuel, fringe benefit costs and operator salaries lead the way in contributing to the increase in expenses.  There was also a significant increase in spending on supplies for the first quarter.

While expenses increased revenue also increased some 21% for the first quarter from 2007. Revenues were up some $44,500 lead by a 43% increase in contract revenue and a 17% increase in general public fares. 2008 first quarter revenue went from 214,212 in 2007 to 258,746 this year.

With both expenses and revenues being up during the first quarter ASC finished with nearly $19,000 deficit for the first quarter.  This is an improvement over the more than  $32,467 deficit for the first quarter of last year.

Here is a breakdown comparing this year’s first quarter revenue to the first quarter of 2007: