UTS lowered the price because it wanted to outbid a national rival, which did not end up submitting a bid.
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Interim JFS Executive Director Bill Morrison said the agency had a rocky start with UTS when the company took on the county contract three years ago, but most of those issues are resolved.
“When UTS started the contract with us three years ago, we were experiencing a lot of problems,” he said. “But those problems have consistently diminished over time, to where their performance is at a much higher level now.”
Under the new deal — which can be canceled at any time with a letter — the county will meet with UTS quarterly to ensure service doesn’t slip. He said UTS has a new GPS tracking system that allows the company to keep tabs on drivers at all times and track when they pick people up and drop them off.
“We’ll have a quarterly meeting with UTS to discuss how things are going, monitor what their on-time percentage is, their no-show percentage,” Morrison said, “so that we take a much more active role in managing this contract than we have in the past.”
Morrison said only two transportation companies responded to his request for proposals, UTS and Le Fleur, a national company that took the county’s business away from UTS in 2011 and then lost it to UTS in the bidding process for 2014. UTS was the only firm to actually submit a bid, but UTS President Carolyn Burer said she didn’t know that, hence the lower per-ride prices.
“We thought we had a tough national competitor,” she said. “So what do you do?”
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The veterans board recently renewed with UTS but also awarded a contract to the Butler County Regional Transit Authority, hoping to reduce the problems they have continued to have with the transport company.
“The hours and hours waiting at the VA has gotten better,” said Caroline Bier, executive director of the Butler County Veterans Commission told the Journal-News previously. “But there’s other issues — not picking people up on time from their home then getting to appointments late. We still have probably at least one complaint a day, if not more.”
At three years into the contract with UTS, that’s too many complaints, Bier said.
Burer has told the Journal-News good service is their primary goal, and they always strive to achieve it. She has also reached out to the agencies around the county where they take JFS clients — like mental health and substance abuse treatments — to make sure they are all on the same page.
She said sometimes a particular service might be cancelled and the client doesn’t need a ride anymore, but that information might not always make it back to UTS in a timely fashion.
“We are going to be reaching out to the agencies in town to communicate changes and different things concerning folks’ transportation and their other services these individuals receive,” Burer said. “So we have open communications.”
The actual billing for the last contract was $8.5 million. Transportation companies offer per-ride rates, so the initial contract price won’t always match the ending bill.
The deal is good for three years. The average cost per trip — there are three types of services, depending on the type of trip and the client’s physical needs — under the old contract was $22.62, the new average is $22.05. The transport service takes people to and from non-emergency medical visits.
The transportation service is funded with federal and state Medicaid dollars and about three percent from the Children Services levy, because there are clients from that agency that also ride.
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