The draft of a Flint Hills Regional Transit Administration Inter-local Agreement was presented to the Junction City Commission Tuesday night.

The purpose of the agreement would be to create a public entity needed to secure Federal Transit Administration dollars to support public transit in the area such as aTa Bus.

Bill Clark, the Flint Hills Regional Council Executive Director presented the agreement to the commission. “The Manhattan Urbanized area, of which Junction City is a part of, based on the 2010 census now has the ability to tap into what they call 5307 funds through FTA to the tune of almost $1 million for our area.”

A public entity must be the direct recipient of the funds and aTa Bus along with the FHRC are not eligible recipients because of they are non-profit organizations. In order to receive the funds the FHRC is proposing the inter-local agreement to create the FHRTA which would be the public entity needed to be the direct recipient of the funding.

Currently aTa Bus is receiving rural 5311 funds which requires a 50/50 match. Kansas State University is currently providing that match because of the number of students that utilize aTa Bus. The 5307 funds would be a 80/20 match (20% local) which KSU would continue to match.

There would be no requirement from Junction City or the County to provide local match funds because KSU is currently doing that.

“Going from 5311 to 5307 what it really does is it increases our leverage-ability with local funds,” Clark said.

The funding also adds the possibility of adding more fixed routes through aTa Bus.

The same members of the Metropolitan Planning Organization would be the same members of the FHRTA with the exception of the addition of KSU who would become a voting member. The MPO is made up of Geary, Pottawatomie and Riley Counties along with the cities of Junction City and Manhattan.

Cecil Aska, Junction City Mayor said during the meeting that he felt comfortable with the agreement,”I feel good about the direction this is heading and I can see the benefit to our community.”

The commission will discuss the agreement again at it’s next meeting when hopefully a final draft of it can be presented.