Lextran seeks Council approval for FY26 Budget

In Tuesday’s Council Work Session, Lextran General Manager Fred Combs will present Lextran’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26). Council will vote on whether or not to approve the budget in that meeting.

Lextran is proposing a $37.9 million budget. Nearly 70% of Lextran’s revenue comes from a dedicated property tax of .06 cents per $100 of taxable property. While no major service changes are proposed, the budget does include funding for several projects, including:

• Improvements to ensure buses arrive on time more frequently
• Upgrading buses with digital screens showing real-time route info, weather, date, and time.
• Adding new vehicles to the fleet, including 10 buses and 10 paratransit vehicles currently on order.

No microtransit funding proposed

Absent from the FY26 budget is funding for a microtransit pilot program, a concept which has been championed by BUILD, an interfaith organization that advocates for various public policies in Lexington. Microtransit is a form of publicly funded, on-demand transportation — like Uber — where riders could book trips from an app and be picked up by Lextran vehicles within certain zones that lack fixed-route bus service.

BUILD believes microtransit would be useful for people who live in these zones, and specifically have presented it as a solution to address recent failures with Lextran’s paratransit Wheels service. You can read more about the idea here.

Lextran commissioned a Microtransit Feasibility Study last year as part of their FY25 budget. That study should be completed in the next few months and will evaluate how useful a microtransit service could be in Lexington, as well as how much it would cost to operate.

Due to a lack of funding, Lextran is not proposing any funding toward a microtransit pilot program in their upcoming budget. In April 22nd’s Environmental Quality and Public Works (EQPW) Committee, Combs estimated that a microtransit program would cost $1 million to operate annually in just one zone.

At-Large Councilmember Chuck Ellinger has expressed frustration with the lack of microtransit funding. In the April 22nd EQPW Committee meeting, he suggested he may vote to disapprove Lextran’s budget if funding is not included, citing Kentucky Revised Statue 96A, Section .360, which gives Council the authority to reject Lextran’s proposed budget and require revisions.

Ellinger has been the most vocal advocate for a microtransit program on Council.