THE ANATOMY OF A GRANT: FED FUNDS RIDES TO WORK (THIRD IN A SERIES)

If you're John Reed, it pays for subsidizing transportation services so welfare recipients can get off the dole and go to work.

Reed coordinates Southeast Missouri State University's Bootheel Initiative, an effort to help get families in the region off the welfare rolls.

The federal government is footing most, if not all, of the bill for the Missouri Bootheel Transportation Collaborative, a service being coordinated through the efforts of Reed and the university.

The first year's funding totals $1,037,271.

Reed envisions the funding increasing annually over the next five years. By 2003, the funding could total $2.15 million.

For this initial year, an estimated $906,061 in federal money would go to 11 transportation providers in a seven-county area of Southeast Missouri. The counties are Cape Girardeau, Dunklin, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard counties.

"Most of the money will be used to hire extra drivers, lease vehicles, and pay for maintenance and gasoline," Reed said.

Ten of the providers are not-for-profit transportation operations such as Cape County Transit. They already receive government funding to provide van shuttle service for specific clientele, such as the elderly and handicapped.

The other provider is Kelley Transportation Co., a for-profit company that operates the subsidized taxi service for Cape Girardeau.

Reed said the money would be used to expand the services to transport people to jobs and job training and their children to day care, if needed.

The money also will be used to pay the university's administrative expenses, including hiring someone to run the grant program.

The grant application submitted by Reed proposes some $300,000 for administrative expenses for the university and the transportation providers.

Administrative expenses for the university alone were projected at $131,210, including the cost of a coordinator, evaluating the services and record keeping.

In addition to a coordinator, Reed said the university likely would hire two additional staff people.

The grant money also would pay a part of Reed's $45,000 salary.

But a final budget still hasn't been worked out. The administrative structure could change, school officials said.

Ginger Burleson likes the idea of expanded transportation services.

The 26-year-old Cape Girardeau woman has been on and off welfare over the years.

She currently works at Heartland Care Rehab Center, a skilled nursing facility.

Burleson and her two sons, ages 3 years and 20 months, live in a Bellevue Street apartment.

Burleson doesn't have a car. She depends on transportation provided by the Southeast Missouri Private Industry Council, a not-for-profit agency in Cape Girardeau whose very existence depends on government grants.

The Private Industry Council or PIC has leased two drivers and two vans from Kelley Transportation at a cost of $1,100 a week.

"On average, we haul 30 people a day to and from jobs," said Ron Swift, PIC executive director.

The leased vans are operated 12 hours a day, Monday through Friday. The program, funded with federal welfare-to-work money, also pays for taxi cab rides if needed to get people to and from work during other hours of the day or on weekends.

Burleson typically works from 5:30 a..m. to 1:30 p.m. six days a week at her $5.50 an hour job. She washes dishes and helps serve breakfast and lunch at the center.

Without the transportation help, Burleson said it would be difficult to hold a job. "I just couldn't do it," she said.

Burleson also calls on the service when she needs to buy groceries or run other errands.

When she is working, her children are in day care.

Burleson said it would have cost her $12 a day if she had to pay for a taxi ride to and from work.

Burleson welcomed the Missouri Bootheel Transportation Collaborative's proposal.

"I think it is excellent, especially for single moms or even single dads," she said.

The university's Reed wrote the grant application for the Bootheel Transportation Collaborative program. It was submitted to the Missouri Department of Transportation last December.

The state, in turn, packaged it with other welfare-to-work grant proposals and submitted the funding requests to the federal government.

MoDOT officials announced the funding last month for the Bootheel Transportation Collaborative.

A federal grant will provide $518,635 to fund the program.

It is being matched with $468,635 in federal dollars from the Private Industry Council.

The other $50,000 is coming from the Missouri Department of Social Services. That may be federal money too.

A spokeswoman for the department said she had been unable to determine if the Social Services' contribution is from state or federal funds.

The entire project is being administered at the state level by MoDOT.

The initial goal is to serve 15 percent of more than 3,300 welfare families in the seven-county region or some 500 families.

Many welfare recipients don't have cars or dependable transportation, making it difficult for them to hold jobs, Reed said.

But the grant-funded transportation services won't get off the ground for months.

Phil Richeson, who administers transit funding for MoDOT, said it likely would be October or November at the earliest before the vans would be rolling.

MoDOT would pay out the federal dollars on a monthly basis as reimbursements for expenses incurred by the transportation program.