WAVE Funding Pains FAQ

TLDR: Costs are increasing, state support is decreasing, and local units of government haven’t been able to cover the gap.

The much longer answer:

When our current Executive Director started, Marie discovered $230,000 of unrecoverable state revenue to support operations, too much time had lapsed and we were not able to get the money owed to us. It was a lot to clean up, finally finishing in January 2025 which cost WAVE at least $40,000 in additional auditing related fees.

During the first year or so with the board support, the Executive Director cut management positions, adjusted driver shifts to appropriate levels based on ridership, and changed maintenance vendors to a vetted but lower priced vendor. In addition, she had many discussions with the local units of government for additional support as well as started writing grants.

However, the state decreased “local bus operating” in 2023, 2024, and 2025 with another cut coming in 2026. Again, talking to local units of government, they have not been able to afford covering the gap and the increased demand for transit.

Also when our current Executive Director started, she noted no vehicles had been replaced and the schedule to replace vehicles using 100% state funds had fallen behind. The state does cover replacements so no rider or local government is asked to, but it also takes a least a year and a half to receive the award and a little longer to actually procure the vehicle. Older vehicles, especially buses, have higher and higher maintenance costs.

In addition to inflation all of us feel, the tarrifs implemented on materials related to auto-parts have been seen in our maintenance costs. We are currently $65,000 over projected costs on that line item year to date.

There are other bits here and there, such as WAVE’s employees are actually taking us up on health insurance – yay healthy drivers! However, the number of participants was unexpected, currently $22,000 over projected costs on that line item year to date.

Our Executive Director also admits she could have made these cuts sooner to turn us around faster – it had been the subject of debate at most board meetings this year. The cash flow was definitely off by January, but with the federal funding pauses we initially felt it was worth continuing and those funds would catch up when released (which they did). Also during that time, WAVE corrected how we financially account for vehicles to aline with best practices, which makes our Profit and Loss statements look like we are in the black – but really we weren’t… aren’t. To address this, our Executive Director now gives the board the actual Profit and Loss as well as an edited version without the vehicle revenue

Then, in March we heard what the state is planning to decrease “local bus operating” again, so the local units of government we talk to in January-March (budget season) don’t have those numbers factored into their spending decisions. To address that last piece, WAVE has been talking to these groups about multi-year agreements which most are open to.

It is complicated, please email Marie Gress, our Executive Director, at mgress@wavebus.org if you would like to have a deeper conversation or look at the financials. We are committed to transparency.

Bad news first:

The tariffs on materials that impact transit are going to grow, increasing the cost of maintenance and purchasing replacement vehicles.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” pulling back Medicaid dollars will hurt rural hospitals, which has left organizations like Chelsea Hospital pause their funding to WAVE starting in October as well as pause our Non-Emergency Medical Transportation plans with them.

The current federal administration hasn’t done their deep dive into transportation funding, so we are unsure of what they will or won’t do but I will say we are not optimistic for increased support.

The changes that have happened at the federal level are changing how state, county, and local units of government choose to spend their money. This coming “local bus operating” decrease is the lowest it’s ever been – but it won’t be until March 2026 that we know if it will increase, decrease, or maintain.

What the bad news means for WAVE and users of the service:

If we don’t cover the $500,000 gap for our upcoming fiscal year, the service pauses will continue or get worse. We will see canceled rides increase, declined rides increase, longer wait time on the bus, and less desirable pickup times. 

Potentially good news:

WAVE currently has a number of grant requests out to help fill the gap, we should get one response by the end of July, one in August, and a few in September.

Washtenaw County residents passed an Older Person’s Millage in November 2024 to which the county is getting ready to make their first investment in transportation services, highlighting the rural area. The RFP will open in July, decisions will be made in September, and we are hopeful for a strong amount of dollars to cover most of the gap to maintain services.

WAVE’s Executive Director has been talking with other local transit agencies about temporarily leasing their spare vehicles while we wait for the state-sponsored replacements to come. This will help avoid high maintenance costs while keeping the services going.

What this means for WAVE and service users:

All the good news section is all to maintain services, currently adding more vehicles and drivers is not guaranteed. We will continue to have a high number of declined rides and longer-than-desired on-the-bus times. 

Advocate to local units of government.

Talk to your representatives in your City or Township. They decide how much to invest in WAVE as a critical service in your community. Tell them privately and at public comment how the service has benefited you, why it should stay, and that you want it fully funded.

Advocate to the county government.

WAVE was able to receive a special award to help transit in Western-Washtenaw in 2024, we don’t have a record of that happening ever before! Tell them your story and ask them to invest more in a critical service that keeps all residents of the county connected.

Washtenaw County also has an Older Person’s Millage that was approved in the November 2024 election. Western-Washtenaw ratio of older adults is higher than the rest of the county and WAVE’s ridership is at least 73% older adults. Tell them your story, ask them to invest in this critical service annually.

Advocate to your friends, family, and neighbors = just share your story.

They might not use WAVE right now, but come a car repair, significant surgery, physical therapy following an accident, loss of vision or just a night out with friends – they’ll want to use the WAVE. Support the critical resource by just talking to more people about it.

If you aren’t sure how to share your story, send it as a letter, email, or video to ride@wavebus.org and we’ll share it on the website, grant applications, and annual reports.

Advocate to the state for more “local bus operating,” otherwise called LBO.

Call your state representatives to allocate more money to “local bus operating” – truthfully before covid it was reimbursing rural agencies like ours 55% of eligible expenses, this year it is 34.5% and next year will be around 29%. We need operating dollars to operate! 

Our executive director is happy to help you if it is your first time advocating in any of these ways, email Marie at mgress@wavebus.org.

Instead of paying cash or check fares, please consider purchasing WAVE monthly passes: https://ridethewavebus.org/bus-passes/

When you purchase a pass, you save our team a lot of time and tracking of who has paid, who hasn’t, counting it all up, and going to the bank. It also automatically renews, giving WAVE more consistent revenue.

The perk is that you could end up saving money based on the number of rides you take! 

Please remember, regardless of the fare you pay or how you pay it, it doesn’t actually cover the cost of the ride.

WAVE is a service provider, but we are also a non-profit! We would love if you considered donating to WAVE to support the work we do and get these services up and running.

• Send a check
• Click the orange donate button on the bottom of this screen
• Or go to https://ridethewavebus.org/donate/

WAVE’s ridership has doubled in the last year and a half, 27,000 to over 50,000 expected rides provided this year.

On our door-to-door service alone we average 2300 completed rides per month, 1000 canceled rides, and 300 declined rides. While Medical, Food Access, and Wellness are the top three reasons people ride, we have hundreds of trip purposes!

Our fixed routes in total move about 1500 rides monthly.

Groups with the senior centers and retirement communities move about 360 rides per month and over the summer local festivals another few thousand each, the Greek Fest was over 6,000 this year! In one weekend!!