OTTUMWA, IOWA -- Ottumwa bus riders will have a chance to give their input on Tuesday, Aug. 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ottumwa City Council meeting regarding possible route cuts.

The Ottumwa Transit Authority has to reduce their expenditures by $100,000.  They are presenting the routes they think should be eliminated or reduced at the city council meeting and then asking for input from the community. After that, council members will vote to decide which routes will ultimately be eliminated.

The new schedule is set to start September 1. 

Right now, the OTA is considering eliminating the JARC ride-to-work program, the Sunday lift van service, and reducing the Saturday service to two fixed routes and starting all weekday routes at 6:45 a.m. instead of 6 a.m.

OTA Director Mark Hagist says cutting the JARC route will cut costs drastically. 

"That's one of the areas that we looked at because it's the most expensive for us to operate and with losing that funding September first anyway, it's just one of those services we decided that we could not provide any further, " said Hagist.

Hagist says OTA will hand over the PTYC North and South routes to the school district.

He said it doesn't look like they will have any layoffs and will use the extra drivers to supplement the fixed routes.

Once the cuts are made, Hagist says they'll study and change the current routes.

"We'll go into the fixed routes that we have currently and probably redesign those so that they're more efficient routes. If we have areas that they're going to that are dead areas with no passengers, then we'll probably skip those areas. "