Kerri Taylor, Director
CKCATS has had a very busy but exciting year thus far! Our trip capacity continues to climb as our Drivers work diligently and expeditiously to keep up with the number of trips pouring in! Although our trip capacity has increased, we have been able to continue to provide all of our offered services: Medicaid, Intercity, Senior, Veteran, and General Public trips.
We are still waiting to hear back from OTD about funds that we will be awarded through the FY23 5339 and 5311 Grant applications that were submitted. Due to the shortage and predicted wait time for 12×2 and 8×2 larger vehicles, we did request a total of $405,760 in rehab funding in the 5339 Grant to maintain the fleet that we currently have.
We received great news last month that CKCATS was awarded $851,329 through the Competitive Section 5339(b) that we applied for! Some funding will be used to purchase 10 Expansion Vehicles to start a Pilot Program that will take individuals to and from work. Some funding will be used to rehabilitate some of our parking lots where we park our fleet. Part of this funding will also be used to enhance the technology in CKCATS. We will be updating all cameras in our vehicles to obtain live view, going paperless by providing drivers smart tablets to log and record trips, and doing a major update on our scheduling software system.
CKCATS participated in the Loretto Street Fair. We had a CATS vehicle on site and handed out our brochures and Intercity rack cards. CKCATS also participated in the Senior Celebration Day held in Marion County on June 29th. We handed out brochures and goodie bags to the seniors and donated a gift basket for a door prize. The Seniors had a great time at the celebration and CKCATS felt fortunate to be in attendance.
You may have recently seen me or my staff in some of your counties. Last month the office staff and I dedicated a week to visit the counties to promote CATS and our services and gain more participation in our Intercity program. We visited many sites in each county and were able to talk to individuals and answer questions about our services. We booked 2 Intercity trips during our visits to the counties! If anyone you know has any questions about CATS services and our Intercity Program or would like a visit from CATS to answer questions or receive some of our brochures, please feel free to contact me at 270-692-2136 or kerri.taylor@ckcac.org.
CKCATS continues to hire drivers in all counties. If you or anyone you know is interested in driving for CATS either full-time or part-time, please go to careers@ckcac.org to apply.