Fayette Senior Services has announced that it will be severely cutting back its transportation services at the end of this month. The cutback could affect as many as 300 local seniors.

The local service will be replaced by a regional one, but FSS executive director Andy Carden said that new service has been delayed, so residents may have to do without for awhile.

The move is in response to the Georgia Department of Human Resources' Unified Transportation System, according to a written statement by Carden.

“This initiative affects all human service organizations in the state including Fayette Senior Services,” the statement said. “We receive state and federal funding and the vans we use are titled to the state; therefore, we will be unable to continue transportation service for Fayette County senior citizens.”

Carden sent this statement in the form of a letter last month to senior citizens in the county informing them of these developments.

The UTS is a plan to offer round-the-clock transportation through regional providers.

Carden said earlier this year that the plan could cut back some of Fayette's service, which is not on as fixed a timetable and somewhat more personal.

Carden said in the recent letter that members of the Friendship Center Adult Day Program would continue to receive transportation, but as of July 1, it would not be offered to the general public.

According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carden planned this year's budget, which begins July 1, on the assumption that the state would be implementing its new program by that time. Now that it's obviously not going to happen then, Carden says he has already budgeted transportation money for a number of other things.

Since the vans used by Fayette Senior Services are titled to the state, Carden fears that he will lose use of them when the state program is implemented.

Senior citizens in the county have often used this service, for a flat fee per trip, to go to the doctor's office or shopping or wherever else they need to go.

Back to News Home Page | Back to the top of the page