Bossier City proposes cutting funding to SporTran

BOSSIER CITY, La. (KSLA) — The Bossier City Council today introduced a proposal to cut funding to SporTran by about $400,000 a year.

The proposal was not on the agenda for today’s meeting but was added by a unanimous vote of the council.

Currently, the city has $900,000 a year budgeted for SporTran bus services. The proposal is to cut that funding to a maximum of $500,000 a year due to budget constraints.

The reason for the change is to allow SporTran to begin adjusting routes to accommodate the change in funding, Councilman Don Williams said.

After the council meeting, SporTran said its leadership was notified of the funding changes during a meeting with city officials on Jan. 4.

“We were sorry to hear from the council that public transit for Bossier City is being greatly reduced,” SporTran CEO Dinero’ Washington said in a news release. “This will create changes for our thousands of Bossier City passengers, Shreveport passengers who ride the bus into Bossier every day for work, and ADA/Paratransit clients.

“Ideally, we’d like to keep all current routes in place, including the South Bossier route introduced last summer.”

That said, SporTran responded to the City Council’s proposed funding cut by saying it most likely would cut midday, night and weekend routes but a final decision has not been made. The new routes would go into effect Feb. 6.

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