El Paso County to attempt to revive canceled vanpool program

El Paso County will now attempt to revive its Vamonos Vanpool program in order to continue receiving about $2 million in other rural-transit grants.

“As we compete for grants, this would take away some positive points that El Paso has,” said Precinct One County Commissioner Carlos Leon. “By eliminating this program, it takes away certain credits or point that El Paso generates, and we would be in danger of losing other funding for our overall county-wide transit program.”

This just a week after the county voted to cancel the program, because it failed to comply with federal grant requirements. That failure could end up costing taxpayers more than $600,000.

Rosemary Neill oversaw the program for the county — she was let go last week. But Monday the county echoed what she said the day she was fired: apparently there’s a chance TxDOT may still restore the grant funding, if the county submits the tardy program documentation, such as van mileage and passenger information.

“We may be able to recover most, if not all of the funding that was involved in this program,” Leon said.

The county auditor’s office will work with TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration to make sure that the county is compliant with those agencies’ standards.

TxDOT didn’t return ABC-7’s call Monday.