Potential SCAT plans spark concern, confusion

Passion for public service is in no short supply in the Tapalaga household. 

To show it, Chris Tapalaga, a six-year bus driver for the Sarasota County Area Transit, stationed herself in front of the County Administration building on a recent afternoon to protest potential changes to the way the county’s transit system operates.

“If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,” she said, wearing her blue SCAT cap and raising a sign that announced the county should keep SCAT public. 

Tapalaga and her husband remained stationed on the sidewalk for at least another hour, drawing supportive honks from the SCAT buses that drove by on Ringling Boulevard.

Since 2017, Sarasota County has been exploring the idea of handing public transportation operations to a private company with the goal of saving tax dollars — the agency operates with a $29.8 million budget. Last month, SCAT narrowed the list to three potential contractors: TransDev, Keolis and First Transit, companies that operate transit systems in cities and regions across the country. The details of those proposals are not yet public.

SCAT spokeswoman Lisa Potts says Sarasota County is not considering fully privatizing SCAT. It’s considering outsourcing certain aspects of its services.

“The request for proposal that has been put out by SCAT is not a privatization of the service that would sell SCAT to a buyer,” she said. “Instead, if a company is awarded the contract to take over operations of SCAT, Sarasota County will still own all buses, shelters and facilities. If the contract is approved, and an outside company takes over operations, the Sarasota County Commission will continue to oversee the SCAT budget, fares and routes.”

Resident Mathew Green emailed Sarasota City commissioners complaining recently about a couple of

buses that didn’t show up. He said he was told about a shortage of drivers and difficulty in hiring new ones.

Potts said staffing challenges aren’t abnormal or specific to SCAT. In fact, driver recruitment, she says, is difficult for most public transit operations.

“While we cannot speak to the personal reasons for any driver’s departure, we have had several long-time drivers retire after serving the county for many years,” Potts said. “Medical leave and illness of drivers has resulted in some delays recently, but has not resulted in SCAT cutting any routes.”

William Gardner, who has been driving for SCAT for more than 10 years, said there is a lot of concern about the future.

“It’s just, we don’t understand why the (County) commissioners want to privatize,” he said. “We don’t feel like there’s money that’s going to be saved with them.’’

SCAT officials will appear before the County Commission on March 12 to further discuss the future and its impact on the upcoming budget preparation season for the next fiscal year.

“The recommendation or the ranking that we have right now does not mean it’s going through, for lack of better words,” she said. “We are still in the evaluation process, but we are waiting on the board to see what they want to do.”