GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The Clay County Board of County Commissioners may be doing away with some Clay Transit routes as the Council on Aging continues to lose money on the transportation service.

Council on Aging Executive Director Al Rizer presented his case to the board Tuesday evening, noting increasing annual losses totalling more than $160,000 in 2016 and over $200,000 last year. In a report prepared for and given to the board, Rizer essentially asked for $650,000 from the county’s general fund to keep their services going another year.

“We’ve struggled for the last couple of years, losing significant amounts of money,” Rizer said. “With any public transportation system it pretty much has to be subsidized. So, we are asking for additional funding to be able to continue to be able to provide the level of support that we currently provide in Clay County.”

The board all seemed shocked by the amount, noting that they have each promised their constituencies various projects and improvements that would come from the same fund that, should they fund Clay Transit, would have to be cut. Also, having just spent money they couldn’t afford on school resource officers and still being out $7 million as they wait for FEMA reimbursements in the wake of Hurricane Irma, they don’t have much to give.

“If it was functionally OK to give you the money I’d be for it,” said Commissioner Gayward Hendry. “I’ve seen the numbers, and, my problem is, I don’t know what’s going to keep you from being back here next year with the same pitch asking for more.”

What makes matters more complicated is the Council on Aging has the county transportation contact through 2021, so they will need to keep Clay Transit operational under that contract for over two years before the contract could be taken up by someone else like the Jacksonville Transit Authority.

Auditor Mike Price advised the board that their best option under the contract would be to cut some of the flex lines serviced by Clay Transit. Though this was his suggestion, he noted that any of their options are going to cost money, this would just be the cheapest in the long run.

Bolla brought it up, and the rest of the board agreed, that they should have separate line items for the Council on Aging and Clay Transit when moving into budgeting so that any potential cuts to the transit system would not affect the services offered by the COA.

Since the item was only a presentation under Old Business, they were not required to take any action Tuesday evening and thanked Rizer for his presentation before moving on, but made a note to pick the conversation back up in the near future.

Also on the agenda were a couple minor improvements to the library patron, privacy and internet usage policies presented by Information Services Director Troy Nagle and approved with a 5-0 vote from the board.

As far as the privacy and internet updates, Nagle said the changes were small and really only brought the policy up to date as far as the newer computer equipment and systems they have put in place since the previous policy had been written. He pointed out things like the difference between the adult computers, for those 13 and older, that have access to social media sites, and children’s computers that limit access to social media.

Bigger changes will be contained in the rewritten patron policy, specifically focused on who can and cannot use the library computers after data from previous years reflected a high number of usage hours by patrons on guest passes.

The new policy would require a library card to use any and all computers in the Clay County system. They will no longer be issuing guest passes and children are not allowed to be issued cards without a parent’s co-signature to note who is responsible for lost items or fines. Further discussion between the board and County Manager Stephanie Kopelousos asked for some leniency to be given to library staff members for kids without home internet access who might come to the library without a card because they need to finish work for school and might not have a parent around to sign the child up for a card.

Another change to the policy will come in the form of total number of items a person can check out being lowered from 25 items per card, and no limit for a family, to 15 per person with a maximum of 50 items for a family.

In a second presentation by Nagle, the board was asked to host a fine forgiveness week for Clay County library patrons that would reduce fines to 50%, and reduce the cost of lost items to either $5 or 50%, whichever is cheaper. Nagle proposed the week of May 28-June 2 for the fine forgiveness and the board unanimously approved the idea.