TAPS Board Votes To Offer Bare Bones Service
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SHERMAN (CBS11) - An embattled transit agency desperate to continue operating is preparing to make drastic changes.
TAPS serves Collin County and six others. It's been struggling financially for months.
The agency's board of directors met Friday to try to find a way to stay in business after losing critical state funding.
Board members made a critical decision moving forward. They voted for a bare bones approach to provide only medically-related rides and a few other specific schedules. As one board member said in the meeting, "The world changed 24 hours ago."
He was referring to the move Thursday by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to stop providing more than $400,000 per month to provide rides for Medicaid recipients. On top of that, the board's chairman says they learned today that their bank seized hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of their payment from that commission.
Even before that loss, the agency had already repeatedly failed to meet its payroll obligations to employees.
And once again Friday, the chairman announced TAPS will not be able to make this week's payroll and will be unlikely to meet the next time either.
Up until now drivers and other employees have still been showing up to work based on the promise of eventually being paid. However Friday, the chairman says those employees deserve to know how desperate the situation is, and without drivers, people like McKinney's Reuben Clayborne, who relies on the service to get to his doctor, could be in bad shape.
"I'm really worried about it. I hope they don't cut them out, cut the routes out 'cause a lot of people would not be able to get to where they need to get," Clayborne said.
A spokesperson for TAPS says exactly which routes will be dropped probably won't be decided until Monday. Customers are urged to check the TAPS website or call the service to see how their rides are affected.
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