BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center S.B. 1631
Transportation & Homeland Security
AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Capital Metro) operates its Special Transit Services (STS) to provide transportation for persons with disabilities who are not able to use fixed route bus services. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that Capital Metro provide unlimited paratransit services to all locations within 3/4 mile of regular fixed bus service. In addition to the ADA requirement, Capital Metro provides service to all locations within its service area on a first-come, first-served basis. STS passengers pay $.60 per ride or $.30 per ride if they buy multi-ride ticket booklets.
Capital Metro also is required by state law to provide paratransit service in municipalities that have withdrawn from Capital Metro's service area--Pflugerville, Cedar Park, Westlake Hills, and Rollingwood. State law, however, stipulates that these cities will pay for only 50 percent of the operating costs to provide STS in those municipalities. In fiscal year 2006, Capital Metro provided 5,296 STS trips in the withdrawn cities. The average operating cost per trip was $44, for a total operating cost of $235,521. Because state law requires that these cities reimburse Capital Metro for only half of these costs, their reimbursement was $117,760.
As proposed, S.B. 1631 requires the withdrawn cities to pay the full price of these services.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Section 451.616(a), Transportation Code, as follows:
(a) Requires the comptroller of public accounts to withhold from the amount of sales and use tax revenue refunded to a unit of election that has withdrawn from a metropolitan rapid transit authority the full amount, rather than one-half, of the difference between the cost of providing services to persons with disabilities in the unit of election and the fares charged during the period in which the sales and use tax was collected and to remit this amount to the authority providing the services.
SECTION 2. Effective date: upon passage or September 1, 2007.