Commission on Aging (COA) members discussed transportation and budget information Human Services recently presented to the Board of Finance (BOF) at their Tuesday, February 24, meeting.

The meeting was originally scheduled for February 23. However, with the snowstorm that same day, the original meeting was canceled and pushed to the following day.

Director of Human Services Natalie Griffith said she kept her report brief because she wanted to use her time today to go over the budget and transportation information she presented to the BOF at its February 12 meeting.

"I was one of the departments that they called to hear more about the budget and answer some questions, so I thought this was a good summary to show everyone where we currently are with the budget," Griffith explained to the COA.

The last time they met, Griffith said she outlined her three budget requests: increase the senior center's program expenditures from $39,000 to $43,000, increase the senior center's special events from $8,000 to $10,000, and continue the coordinator position for the Newtown Easy Transit pilot program beyond when American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant funds expire in December 2026.

However, these increases towards the program expenditures and special events categories did not make it into the budget, with the totals remaining at $39,000 and $8,000 respectively.

Griffith said HARTransit, which also provides transportation services in Newtown among many other areas, came in with a budget request from $178,988 to $187,143. She continued by saying they have contracted with HARTransit for several years, but the service has "really reached its capacity."

In an attempt to alleviate this issue, Griffith said Human Services launched the Newtown Easy Transit program to provide transportation to residents ages 60 and older, as well as disabled individuals over 18.

HARTransit was asked to provide a proposal of what service would look like at $150,000 and $170,000.

The Board of Selectmen put HARTransit in the budget at $152,143. This budget reduction would impact and decrease HARTransit services, according to Griffith.

Griffith said there are "really two options" for what the decreased service would look like: decreasing service in the middle of the day when the company are less busy, or eliminate Saturday service.

"The concern that I expressed to the BOF was that, with decreasing our service, that also means that the federal funding for the [Newtown Easy Transit] program will be decreased because it is proportionate to what our support of the program is," Griffith explained.

Those federal funds, she said, would be pulled from Newtown and into another community.

"Obviously, that would be very difficult to get those back," Griffith added. "I don't think the community would be excited to give up service if they were able to increase their service."

As such, Griffith said there is the possibility of the decreased financial funds through the Federal 5307 funds and the matching grant program.

She added, "So there's those three layers of funding that help us have the HARTransit service here in Newtown."

Griffith also shared statistics for the Newtown Easy Transit pilot program, stating that they had 747 rides requests from its inaugural ride on September 8 through January 2026. The program has completed a total of 696 rides, 589 ambulatory rides and 107 non-ambulatory rides.

While this is only give months of data, Griffith said she believes this shows "quite a need."

The challenge with the Newtown Easy Transit program, Griffith said, is that the ARPA funds will expire in December 2026.

"I don't think it's going to be an issue at all for us to use those funds, but once those funds are gone, they're gone, so we do have to look at how we're going to support this program going forward," Griffith said.

She explained this is why the program has fees, and that there are also grants they can apply for to keep the buses on the road and to support Newtown's senior residents.

"As I expressed to the BOF, if Newtown Easy Transit were to not continue and we lose some of the HARTransit service, then we'll be worse off compared to where we started," Griffith said.

Ned Simpson, who is on the Friends of Newtown Seniors (FONS), spoke to COA members about working together to enhance offerings to the community. He noticed that there were a lot of overlapping or repeating events between the COA and FONS, and so they could work on combining their efforts instead.

"We have the same sort of challenge, how to we collect input and feed it into advocacy, and right now [FONS] has fragmented efforts," Simpson said.

The attendance at FONS monthly Roundtable meetings, designed for the purpose of sharing information and learning about issues important to seniors in town, Simpson described as "somewhere between modest and statistically not significant, if not terrible."

He added, "So Joan Alexander and I from FONS ask, if you think it's worthwhile we work together — my vested interest is to build up the Roundtable ... then we'd ask you'd endorse that concept and identify a couple people."

Griffith said she thinks it is certainly worthy of effort on how to really build on this and how to capitalize on the information coming out of these sessions.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.