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.

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