Island Transit board members voted Friday to cut Whidbey Island’s only off-island route and initiate a fare study.

“I’m obviously disappointed,” said Island County Commissioner Jill Johnson, who serves on the IT board.

The board eliminated Route 411, which travels from Oak Harbor, over Deception Pass Bridge and to March’s Point on Fidalgo Island.

The cut to Whidbey Island’s only off-island route is one of several made county-wide over the last year after significant financial problems were uncovered at the public transit system.

More than 20 IT staff members were laid off and former Executive Director Martha Rose resigned amid criticism.

State auditors subsequently identified serious problems with financial oversight at the public transit agency.

State grants that supported the route’s creation and implementation over the last few years expire on June 30. Johnson said IT’s already thin operating budget cannot sustain the route, though the board will continue the service through Aug. 1.

“We could have done it, but it would have kept the organization in a longer state of instability,” Johnson said. “We need to stabilize our Island County routes first.”

The transit system is paying for the one-month route extension out of its operating budget to give people more time to prepare, explained Oak Harbor City Councilman Rick Almberg, who also serves on the IT board.

Meanwhile, board members said they will be looking to stabilize in-county routes and pursue a system for collecting fares.

“The fact that nearly every system in the state collects fares speaks to the reality that fares work,” Johnson said. “People who ride the bus need to have some skin in the game.”

Previous leadership, including Rose and former board members, claimed that a collection system would be more expensive than the fares that would be raised.

While that might be true in the short term, Johnson said she believes fares will be a good income source over time.

“We’re going to do another (study) because we are going to a fare system as I see it,” Almberg said.

“We need to help ourselves.”

The board directed IT staff to put out for proposal requests on the fare study with a $30,000 cap and a June 16 deadline.

The fare study will determine what system will work best for IT, as well as what fares to charge and which routes might be affected.

One of IT leaders’s main frustrations is a perceived lack of cooperation they are receiving from Skagit and Snohomish counties.

As a result, Island County has subsidized routes into other counties because of an unwillingness to at least connect services at the border, Johnson said.

“We have been allowing them to save costs while we absorb the cost,” Johnson said.

Island Transit board members said they hope to lobby state and federal legislators to assist in brokering partnerships and identifying new funding sources.

State Rep. Dave Hayes, R-Camano, added an amendment to the House’s multimodal transportation bill last month that would provide $1 million for the Everett connector that is scheduled to end this summer.

The bill has yet to be approved by legislators. Regardless, it would not save Route 411.

“I had hoped we could leverage some of the funding Dave Hayes got for the Everett connector,” Johnson said.

Since that hasn’t panned out, Johnson and Almberg both said they hope Hayes and other elected officials might work the same type of magic for Island Transit.