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Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility (1998)

Chapter: Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina

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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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Suggested Citation:"Chesterfield County Coordinating Council in South Carolina." Transportation Research Board. 1998. Using Public Transportation to Reduce the Economic, Social and Human Costs of Personal Immobility. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9438.
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CHESTERFIELD COUNTY COORDINATING COUNCIL IN SOUTH CAROLINA CASE STUDY

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY COORDINATING COUNCIL IN SOUTH CAROLINA The Chesterfield County Coordinating Council (CCCC) strives to better utilize existing resources in order to increase mobility for clients of rural human services agencies. By tapping into unused capacity of vehicles owned by several organizations, it is an example of coordination among the social services, school district, and the public transportation provider. The mission of the 43 agencies that are CCCC members is "to strengthen the systems which provide services to the citizens of Chesterfield County, through improved corrununication, adequate linkage and collaboration with key agencies, schools, health and human services, governments and the judicial system." (~) Therefore, its mission is much broader than simply coordination of transportation. However, transportation has emerged as one of the primary obstacles to better delivery of social services. Some of the elements of its coordinated transportation plan include: · sharing vehicles and drivers among agencies, · pooling driver training, · layering a new fixed route on top of door-to- door transportation, · adding adult passengers on school buses, and · freeing case workers from transporting clients. The CCCC is also a demonstration project for the State of South Carolina, whose Department of Transportation has formed an Interagency Steering Committee on Coordinated Transit to accomplish a similar mission at the state level. CCCC's Recipe for Coordination What to do: Map routes of human service agency vans. Pool liability and drivers. · Share route information via e- mail. Transport clients in others' empty seats. Rotate free training classes among members. · Layer a fixed route on existing van routes. · Advocate changes in regulations. How to do it: · Leadership · Building Trust · Strategic Planning DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTY AND ITS TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGES Chesterfield County is comprised of 850 square miles in the northeast part of South Carolina, abutting the state of North Carolina. About 78% of the county is very rural; only half of the 1,700 miles of roads are paved. Because a national wildlife refuge and a 1

state forest occupy approximately 53,000 acres in the middle of the county, population centers are located around the fringes of the county. The county has a population of 39,800. The largest town is Cheraw, with a population of 5,500, located on the eastern border beside the Great Pee Dee River. The county seat is in Chesterfield, a small community of i,404 people about IS miles northwest of Cheraw. Pageland, with about 2,700 people in the northwest sector of the county, is the fastest growing population center because of its proximity to Charlotte, North Carolina. The geographic isolation of the residents of Chesterfield County is compounded by poverty: 20% fall below the poverty level; JO are unemployed; 38% are illiterate; 13.5% of households have no vehicle; and 15.7% of households have no telephone. (2) The demographic and geographic attributes of Chesterfield County contribute to its transportation challenges. Because of the parklands. people must travel some distances ~. ~. . . .' - - r - --a `- -1- - - - arounc them to get to other communities and services. For example, McBee, a community of 700 located in the southeast corner of the county next to the wildlife refuge, has no grocery store and only one pharmacy. No community except Cheraw has taxicabs. Only school buses penetrate every part of the county, and they may travel eight miles between stops. The scattered residential areas also mean that a pool of professionals and volunteers to draw upon for community service is lacking. Indeed, there is not even a central location where the CCCC can meet conveniently for all its members. Thus, expanding transportation options was identified early on as an important need in the county. HISTORY OF TO COORDINATING COUNCIL The Chesterfield County Coordinating Council was founded by Jean Harris, a member of South Carolina's House of Representatives. She was responding to community concerns in her district about the rise in juvenile crime and the treatment of youthful offenders. In early 1993, Representative Harris called together agency and government representatives dealing with these issues. At the meeting, attendees discovered that many agencies had common problems and overlapping services. (3) The group began to meet monthly and, in September, 1993, adopted its mission statement. It formally organized itself as the Chesterfield County Coordinating Council and has since adopted bylaws, incorporated, obtained non-profit status, and surveyed its members to assess the community's needs. The 43 members include the school district, the public transit agency, and a wide range of human service agencies, including those serving persons with disabilities, the elderly and the indigent. A full list of the member agencies is included as Appendix I. 2

The CCCC has seven active subcommittees: Grants, Parent/Child Training, Transportation, Resource Directory, Computer, Medical, and Employment and Training. In 1994, the CCCC hired a Coordinator, who is paid by funds pooled from the school district and the Department of Social Services. Before coordination could be undertaken, CCCC members had to confront turf battles, dissolve resentment between agencies and build trust and rapport. Some of the underlying issues included: lack of understanding of each other's goals and services. reluctance to share scarce resources for fear that one's own programs would suffer; concern about the understanding another agency would have of one's clientele; worry that the bigger or more powerful agencies would overpower the desires of the smaller or less powerful agencies; suspicion that revealing one's costs would reflect unfavorably without taking into account basic differences among the agencies; anxiety that the State would reduce one's funding if duplication with another agency was uncovered; discouragement at the lack of support from the parent state agency ; and unwillingness to face the bureaucratic red tape required to share resources. The CCCC spent its first two years ironing out these differences through strategic planning sessions. Representative Harris continued to lead the group, mediating disputes and inducing cooperation at the state level. One of the most important benefits of this give-and-take was an educational process which resulted in "a significant increase in cooperation of staff at the direct service level." As a result, "members have faith in and patience with the collaborative process." (4) One product of the educational process was the publishing of a countywide resource manual in 1995, which lists the agencies and their services. Another was the development of a one-stop shop for social services, which opened September, 1996, in Cheraw. This shop, the Robert Smalls Family Center, increases the availability of services in order to empower families to prevent or solve their own problems. The shop is a continuation of an earlier effort to prevent children from being placed in foster homes through a 1995 family preservation grant from the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Yet another project of the CCCC is delivery of meals to the homebound elderly by the Adult Interagency Treatment Team, using 1997 grant funds from the Elder Care Partnership. These collaborative efforts resulted from strategic planning sessions based on the original needs assessments, which identified service areas requiring improvement. One of the top five priorities identified was transportation. To address this need, the CCCC has received a grant from the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) to foster a coordinated transportation system. 3

COORDINATION OF TRANSPORTATION In Fiscal Year 96-97, the CCCC was one of five agencies in the state to receive an SCDOT grant for pilot projects to demonstrate coordination of transportation services. CCCC's original $42,179 grant has been increased for FY97-98 to $53,793. The two grants have been supplemented by $82,500 in in-kind contributions from member agencies. The CCCC acts as the fiscal agent on behalf of its 43 members for this grant and the other grants mentioned in the previous section. The CCCC does not intend to be a direct service provider. Therefore, the grants do not propose new transportation services. Rather, they focus on using available resources more efficiently. One of CCCC's goals is to maximize existing resources by sharing vehicles owned by or under contract to the human services agencies and the school district and, thereby, decrease the involvement of human services professionals in directly providing transportation. One of the member agencies, the county's Board of Disabilities and Special Needs, decreased the Rage traveled by its staff for client transportation by 27 SO between March and July, 1997, (5~. To achieve these results and to further increase ridership in existing vehicles, CCCC has undertaken the following activities. These activities serve as a recipe for collaborative action: I. Develop a countywide map with the routes of all transportation providers. Currently, the Department of Mental Health, the Council on Aging, the Board of Disabilities and Vocational Rehabilitation all own and operate vehicles. In addition, Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority (PDRTA) provides public transportation and Medicaid non-emergency transportation. The map would illustrate where there might be duplication that could be eliminated, as well as allow agencies to determine what regularly-scheduled service is available for shared use. 2. Establish a memorandum of agreement to pool insurance liability. The memorandum of agreement allows clients of one agency to be transported on another agency's vehicle. Most of the agencies that own vehicles have already signed the agreement, since all are insured by the South Carolina Insurance Reserve Fund, administered through the State Budget and Control Board, Underlying the agreement is approval from the Reserve Fund, which states, "as long as the collaborative transportation project is an intended, permissible use of your covered vehicles, the liability insurance would not be prejudiced." (6) 3. Publish a calendar of routes to foster coordination and better utilization of vehicles. Agencies which have clients needing transportation on an irregular basis consult the calendar to determine if another agency is going near the client's home. The agency can then call the other agency to arrange for a shared trip. 4

4. Link agencies via computer modems and software. The first SCDOT grant included funds to purchase modems and software for routing and scheduling. Member agencies of CCCC now can post written additions to the transportation calendar via electronic mail. The software helps increase routing efficiency and tracks usage rates. 5. Obtain a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system. The second SCDOT grant included $7,000 for a GPS system to complement the routing and tracking software purchased earlier. Through this technology, the GPS system will advance the sophistication of the coordination accomplished in the previous four tasks. By using a hand-held, portable system, CCCC staff can collect data to map the various routes of human service agencies' vans. With the data, the GPS system can put dots on the map to develop the most efficient, non- duplicative routes. The map will be installed on the computer and can be accessed by any member agency. Agencies will be able to determine what vans have available seats for their clients. The map will also contain important attributes about the stops, such as whether there is a bus shelter or lighting. 6. Hire a part-time clerk/scheduler. To enhance the effectiveness of the activities listed above, a part-time clerk will be hired to work under the direction of the school district. The clerk will maintain and distribute the transportation calendar and coordinate interagency use of available vans and the fixed-route vehicles. Eventually, the clerk may use the GPS system map to schedule inter-agency trips. 7. Offer free training to each other's agency staffs and to the community. In order to increase class size and decrease driver training costs, agencies sponsor training classes open to the other members. Classes are also held to increase the drivers' skills in working with a variety of clients, particularly where shared rides with mixed populations occur. For example, The Chesterfield Board of Disabilities and the Board of Disabilities in Darlington both offered "Handling Aggressive Behavior" and "Confidential, Fire Safety, and Abuse Behavior" classes. The Tri-County Mental Health Agency taught "Geriatrics Assessment," and PDRTA offered "Defensive Driving" and "First Aid/CPA." Training is also provided to community and neighborhood groups to identify specific needs and to teach them to use the transportation system. Examples of groups assisted are a church organization and United Way. In addition, volunteers will be trained to be client escorts, which will reduce costs to the client, Medicaid and the provider. Both free and paid media are used to educate the public on the county's available transportation options. Share drivers among agencies. Sharing drivers has a number of benefits: (~) It enhances the driver's ability to make a living wage. For example, a driver may combine a part-time job driving a s

human services agency van with a part-time job driving a school bus; (2) It stabilizes the pool of trained, professional drivers; and (3) It reduces hiring and training costs for individual agencies. 9. Implement a fixed-route system. A major accomplishment has been the establishment of a fixed-route system where there was none. The route is superimposed on existing door-to-door routes run by PDRTA. Drivers are alerted to stops along their usual route where the general public may board. CCCC has purchased bus stop signs to mark these points for the public. Three commuter routes run Monday through Friday between various population centers in the county. Two routes run from 6: 1 5 or 6:30 a.m. to 6 or 6:30 p.m. The third route ends at ~ :30 p.m.. Service is still bare bones, with only one pickup a day on one route and up to three pickups a day on another route. Fares are $ I-2, based on distance. 0. Advocate for changes in state regulations that prohibit coordination of transportation. The CCCC has focused on seeking a waiver or new legislation to lift the prohibition against allowing adults to ride school buses on regular routes. Because the school buses go within a half mile of each school child's house in this rural county, there is a built-in transportation system that is not fully utilized. The next section describes CCCC's progress toward this goal. PUBLIC USE OF EMPTY SCHOOL BUS SEATS The Chesterfield County School District was an active participant in the CCCC from the outset. During discussions in the formative years of the CCCC, it became obvious that the school district had a transportation resource that could address many of the mobility needs of adult residents. It operates about 100 buses to transport children living outside a one-and one-half mile radius of the seven school attendance areas in the county. The fleet of 54 and 68-passenger buses each have from two to nine seats available on any day, or about 500 total seats on each weekday during the school year. The Assistant Superintendent of Operations, with the support of the District Superintendent, proposed a pilot to the School Board to allow clients of member agencies who need transportation to fill the vacant seats. Agencies would verify that these clients had no criminal or sexual abuse records. Approved clients would then call the CCCC clerk/scheduler at PDRTA to coordinate the trip. The CCCC clerk/scheduler would check the school bus route maps, determine whether a seat was available, and tell the client at which stop to wait. The CCCC clerk/scheduler would then e-mai} a list to the school district with the names of clients and their pickup points and school dropoffs. The school district would notify individual drivers and require them to check a picture identification card when the client boards. No fare would be charged. Human service agency vans or fixed-route buses could then take the client from the school dropoff to a final destination. 6

Some parents called with concerns about their children's safety after they saw the proposal described in the newspaper. Drivers, however, are supportive. Since the buses cover many isolated roads, the drivers consider having another adult on the bus comforting to monitor behavior or help in emergencies. Video cameras with sound are being installed on all buses as another safety precaution. And the sheriff and police departments respond to any incidents on the buses. · ~. . ~. ~. Although the School Board shared some of the safety concerns, they agreed at their February 10, 1997 meeting to petition the state for permission to conduct the pilot. Because the State purchases the buses, maintains and fuels them, and covers the cost of drivers, the State's involvement was essential. At the time, state regulations permitted only students, school district employees, and bus maintenance personnel to ride school buses. The Chesterfield County School District wrote to the State Superintendent of Education requesting a waiver of this regulation for the 1997-98 school year. As justification, the letter stated that the waiver "could save the taxpayers of our state a considerable amount of money while, at the same time, improve services to citizens of our state who depend upon the various governmental agencies for help." It also cited the mission of the CCCC "to make sure that governmental services in Chesterfield County are not duplicated at the expense of the taxpayers and that citizens receive needed services in the most expeditious and cost-effective manner possible." (7) Separate from the school district's action, but in the same time period, a bill was introduced in the State Legislature to allow parents and other adult school volunteers or employees "to ride route school buses on a space available basis" and also to ride "in conjunction with special programs that are sponsored by the local school district." (~) The bill, H.346l, became law on June 15, 1997. Although H.3461 is much narrower than the original intent of the CCCC, the school district and the CCCC have decided to begin their pilot with what is now permitted by law. Routes will accommodate adults who will ride regularly. The schools will benefit by having volunteers as monitors on the school buses. By increasing the mobility of parents and other adults, the schools also hope to recruit more volunteers to help in the classrooms. If the pilot is successful, the school district will once again attempt to ~'fn~nc1 the. nv~il~hilitv of rifles to the hrnacler Run it originally envisioned. ~ ~ ~ =--~r A o According to the Assistant Superintendent of Operations, North Carolina recently passed welfare reform legislation that allows welfare workers to ride to and from jobs on school buses. In South Carolina, however, the State Department of Education was explicitly excluded from the Legislature's FY 96-97 Appropriations Act. The Act mandates a transportation plan "to consolidate all sources of transportation funding throughout state government and to operate with this funding a transportation system to support the specific programs from which the funding derives and the population of South Carolina in general." (9) In its willingness to share its empty bus seats, the Chesterfield County

School District is, therefore, a pathfinder in the State, taking on a role that it is not required by the State to assume, for the betterment of its citizenry. INTERAGENCY STEERING COMMITTEE ON COORDINATED TRANSPORTATION In response to the Legislature's FY 96-97 Appropriations Act mentioned above, the South Carolina Department of Transportation's Division of Mass Transit has established the Interagency Steering Committee on Coordinated Transportation (ISCCT). This committee is similar to the CCCC, but operates at the state level, with representatives from state and local health and human service agencies, public and private transportation providers, and regional planning agencies. Because the CCCC has already had experience in the field with many of the issues the ISCCT faces, the CCCC has been a resource to SCDOT. The Legislature's mandate to consolidate transportation funds has been met with resistance. According to a report to the Legislature, "One of the concerns expressed by many human service agencies is that the State will mandate contracting transportation to a designated coordination provider who is unable to meet the needs of its clients or whose costs are higher than the costs of the human service agency. One of the concerns expressed by some general public transportation providers is that they are not given a fair chance to demonstrate that they can provide adequate service and/or that an equitable cost allocation system is not in place in that community." (10) Thus, the ISCCT is running into the same issues that confronted the CCCC in its formative years: (~) competition and a lack of trust among agencies, and (2) a lack of uniform cost reporting and differences in mission that make such uniform reporting difficult. Therefore, the ISCCT is concentrating first on coordination rather than consolidation. As described earlier, it has chosen the CCCC as one of five SCDOT statewide projects to demonstrate how coordination can be achieved by testing mode} procedures and strategies. SCDOT is also using incentives to foster coordination between public transportation providers and the human services agencies. It gives subsidies to the human service provider only if it uses a public transportation provider to operate the services. SCDOT has requested the approval of the Federal Transit Administration to fund vehicles for the public transportation provider instead of the human service agency when the public provider has proven its responsiveness to the clients' needs. A major coordination/consolidation recommendation currently under consideration by the state of South Carolina is to transfer Medicaid non-emergency transportation from the State Health and Human Services agency to SCDOT. A decision on this recommendation is expected by the end of 1997. 8

Chesterfield County's small laboratory of coordination is now being replicated at the state level. The ISCCT exemplifies how more effective public service delivery cannot simply be mandated by legislative action. Years of separate bureaucracies, often with divergent agendas, create resistance to change. Peremptory actions can be met with passive opposition. But Chesterfield County has demonstrated that moving slowly, building understanding, and breaking the effort into manageable tasks can lead to the goal of coordination. Like the CCCC, ISCCT members are working together to achieve a more coordinated system. ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS In the last decade of the twentieth century, those charged with providing public services must do so in a climate of rapid change. Welfare reform, untraditional delivery of medical care, a rise in juvenile crime, an aging population, and institutional downsizings are some of the challenges that demand program realignments. But these challenges also present new urgency to the call for cooperation among public and quasi-public agencies. The Chesterfield County Coordinating Council is a mode} for how this cooperation can be undertaken. It attributes its progress toward coordination to three elements for success: Leadership, Building Trust, and Strategic Planning. Leadership In a competitive society, cooperation does not always come easily. Sometimes it needs a strong push. The members of the CCCC are quite clear that the leadership of the late Representative lean Harris was an essential ingredient for their success. As chairperson of the CCCC, she advocated "for the continued collaborative process and never for any particular agency or issue, preventing the process from becoming politicized." ~ ~ ~ ~ According to several members, Representative Harris had the respect and authority "to sit in judgment in a controversy" between different agencies' viewpoints. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, she also had the stature to make things happen at the state level. For example, when the CCCC grant faced a long delay because state officials were required to first perform a site visit, Representative Harris issued an invitation to the six state agency directors to meet in Chesterfield. All six, some of whom had not visited the county in years, came to the meeting, and the grant approval was expedited. Representative Harris died in January, 1997, but the CCCC members believe that they are now mature enough as a group to carry out their mission together. Her son was elected to serve out her term in the Legislature and will chair the CCCC. Other examples of leadership along the path to coordination include: the Chesterfield County School District's advancement of a transportation solution and its willingness to pursue changes in bureaucratic rules to accomplish the goal; 9

. the CCCC members' commitment to achieve results by actively participating in subcommittees and their flexibility in finding workable options to fit all members' needs; and the Legislature's recognition of a need to coordinate transportation now provided by multiple agencies and its corresponding actions to set the process in motion with the ISCCT. Building Trust --rig ~ Members of the CCCC stated that the initial two years of meetings was a critical first step in building trust among the agencies. Their advice is not to worry about funding programs until a base of coordination and collaboration has been established. In order to build the base, members have to demonstrate that they are willing to listen to each other. For example, in one of the early discussions, some agencies made clear that they would oppose any plan that required them to dedicate their vehicles to a centralized location, from which the vehicles would be dispatched to suit each agency's needs. They wished to maintain control of their vehicles because the vans were used not only for client transportation but also for home visits by social workers, by work crews, for staff and volunteer transportation, and for emergencies. From this discussion, the proposal to instead allow for shared use emerged, as outlined in the SCDOT grant described earlier. By remaining flexible, the CCCC was able to work out an agreeable solution for all, which did not require new funding and which continues agency control. The list of divisive issues which the CCCC confronted was repeated at the state level by the ISCCT. The ISCCT has begun tackling these issues by building a database of information. Like the CCCC members, the SCDOT Planning Manager believes that a group must know each other's concerns. In building trust, she advises, "Be cautious in pushing members beyond where they fee! comfortable." The ISCCT used a survey as a necessary first step to identify what transportation resources existed and who controlled them. Only then, the Planning Manager indicated, can those advocating coordination understand the challenges and develop plans to address them. Strategic Planning When a key issue is identified, the CCCC forms a subcommittee of members who volunteer, chaired by one of the agencies. Since subcommittees are task-oriented, they are disbanded when the job is completed. This planning process allows the burdens and credits to be shared among the members. Underlying the CCCC's work is the initial needs assessment, an analytical base upon which to decide which projects to pursue. Subcommittee members are guided in their approach by the goal of eliminating redundancy, which helps focus the options considered. Flexibility among subcommittee members is fostered by the agreement to achieve consensus. 10

Because of this strategic planning, Chesterfield County has had a jump on implementing welfare-to-work legislation. When the state passed the Family Independence Act in 1995. its version of welfare reform, the CCCC already had in place mechanisms for coordination of services, including transportation. As a result, the county's Department of Social Services is at 143~o of its goal to place welfare recipients in jobs, the second highest county placement rate in South Carolina. Sometimes the CCCC found its grand strategies needed to be revised for smaller steps forward. For example, when centralization of all vehicles was resisted, a method of sharing vehicles through calendars and e-mai} was devised. When the Legislature passed a more limited version of mixing adults on school buses than hoped for, the CCCC decided to start with a smaller pilot program. Now the Transportation Subcommittee has encountered roadblocks in setting up a cost comparison methodology. In some agencies, professionals paid as social workers are also used as part-time drivers. Another agency might use its empty passenger seats to transport hot meals to the homebound. Because of these difficulties in comparing per passenger mile costs across agencies, the Transportation subcommittee will begin with calculating the number of case workers' hours saved through increased transportation coordination. Thus, by breaking the tasks into smaller increments, the CCCC members have exhibited the flexibility necessary to advance their goals by avoiding deadlocks. The CCCC demonstrates that coordination need not require large monetary investments and complicated technology. Its strategies a countywide map of routes, pooled drivers and insurance liability, shared van seats to create a fixed route that was lacking-can be replicated by other small systems without new investments. Rather, voluntary cooperation is the essential ingredient. Thus, through many small steps, the CCCC is moving strategically toward coordination. 11

FOOTNOTES I) Chesterfield County Coordinating Council Bylaws, Article I, amended 6/13/97. 2) "Proposed Demonstration Project from the Chesterfield County Coordinating Council to the Interagency Steering Committee on Coordinated Transit to Enhance and Coordinate the Transportation System in Chesterfield County," Nov., 1996. 3) "Proposed Demonstration Project from the Chesterfield County Coordinating Council to the Interagency Steering Committee on Coordinated Transit to Enhance and Coordinate the Transportation System in Chesterfield County," Nov., 1996. 4) Letter by Margaret Plettinger Mitchell, Coordinator, CCCC, to Gail Murray, July IS, 1997. 5) "CCCC Coordinated Transit Grant Final Report," September 29, 1997. 6) Letter from Albert Byrd, Manager, Property-Casualty Department, South Carolina Insurance Reserve Fund to Janice Rozier, April 2l, 1997. 7) Letter from Frank Patterson, Assistant Superintendent for Operations, Chesterfield County School District, to Dr. Barbara Nielsen, State Superintendent of Education, February 20, 1997. S) Act No. Al04 to amend the code of laws of South Carolina, 1976, by adding Section 59-67-545. June 30, 1997. 9) South Carolina Department of Transportation, "Coordination of Transportation: A Report to the House Education and Public Works Committee and the Senate Transportation Committee," January, 1997. 10) South Carolina Department of Transportation, "Coordination of Transportation: A Report to the House Education and Public Works Committee and the Senate Transportation Committee," January, 1997. 1) "Proposed Demonstration Project from the Chesterfield County Coordinating Council to the Interagency Steering Committee on Coordinated Transit to Enhance and Coordinate the Transportation System in Chesterfield County," Nov., 1996. 12

APPENDIX 1 CHE S1TERFIELD COUNTY COORDINATING COUNCIL Member Agencies Alpha Center American Red Cross - Chesterfield County Chapter Boys and GirIs Club Camp SandhilIs Cheraw Community Police Officer Chesterfield County Board of Disabilities & Special Needs Chesterfield County Council Chesterfield County Council on Aging Chesterfield County Department of Social Services Chesterfield County Health Department Chesterfield County ROADS Team Chesterfield County School District Chesterfield-MarIboro Economic Opportunity Council, Inc. Chesterfield-MarIboro Technical College Chesterfield General Hospital Clemson Extension Service Community Long Term Care Continuum of Care Department of Education School Bus Maintenance Shop Department of Social Services - Volunteer Transportation Provider Family Court Judges, 4th Judicial Circuit Girl Scout Council of the Pee Dee Area, Inc. Guardian ad Litem Program Healthy Start Coalition Hospice of Chesterfield County Housing Authority of Cheraw Legal Aid Legislator - House District No. 53 Local Newspapers Ministers from various churches Office of the Solicitor, 4th Judicial Circuit Pageland Community Police Officer Pee Dee Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Assault Pee Dee Health District - Department of Health & Environmental Control Pee Dee Regional Transportation Authority SandhilIs Medical Foundation, Inc. South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice South Carolina Vocational Rehabilitation Sheriff's Department Teen Companion Program Teen Life Center Tri-County Mental Health Center Visiting Nursing Service

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