Vincennes votes to double annual contribution to VanGo to $40,000

But in the absence of federal grants on which the system has long depended, Nola Davis, director of the Bettye J. McCormick Senior Center, the organization that runs VanGo, is looking ahead to 2018.

“It's going to take all of us working together to do this,” Davis told the city council Monday during a public hearing held at City Hall, 201 Vigo St.

VanGo has, for years, received a $500,000 matching grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation to help it cover the majority of the system's annual operating costs.

But to get that money, Davis must raise $500,000 in local funds.

Previously, that wasn't a problem, not with federal grants, Medicaid reimbursements, local service contracts, private donations, United Way dollars, advertising revenue and annual contributions from both the city and county.

But in the absence of those federal grants, Davis is having to look elsewhere for the dollars she needs to raise the $500,000 match.

Last year, to help bridge a funding shortfall, both the county and the city voted to increase their contributions. Davis was “leveraging everything” she had, she said, but “still coming up short,” hence the request for additional money.

But now she wants a more permanent solution. So as she looks to file the matching grant application for 2018, she is asking that the city and county up their annual contributions for good.

“That's a half a million dollars that comes back into our community,” Davis said of the state grant. “And they tell me that for every one of those dollars, the county sees another $3 to $7 in income.

“But all of that,” she said, “requires a local buy in.”

The county has given increasingly more to VanGo over the years, and two weeks ago voted to increase its annual contribution to $65,000.

The city's willingness to increase its annual gift to $40,000 actually brings VanGo more in line with other public transportation systems just like it, Davis said.

The average contributions from counties and cities to public transportation systems of similar size, she said, are $75,000 and $40,000 respectively.

But Councilman Tim Salters looked to clarify this gift compared to others given last year. This latest $20,000 isn't to help “shore up” VanGo once again, he asked, but, instead, to help it find sustainability?

“Yes,” Davis said. “Last year, (those additional dollars) were really due to a deficit.

“What I'm here asking about today is just match money,” she said. “It's really two different things.”

And without the additional money, Davis said she would have to “de-obligate” a portion of the grant, or essentially give it back to the state.

“And that's something I hope I never have to do,” she told the council, as it could become difficult in subsequent years to recover those dollars regardless of how much she is able to raise in local match money.

De-obligating money, too, she said, could mean a cut in services in the fourth quarter of 2018, a time when VanGo is most often at its busiest due to the holiday and influenza season.

But city council members didn't need much convincing.

Councilman Jim Westfall did ask about increasing the current $2 per ride fare to help raise the needed funds, but Davis said she worried ridership would plummet, thereby bringing even more troubles.

VanGo, too, has also been rated by the state as one of “Indiana's best performers” in terms of the the cost charged per ride.

With the council's vote Monday to double the annual contribution to VanGo, Mayor Joe Yochum said he will just increase the gift to $40,000 in the annual budget.