Economic Impact Study Consultant Services

The vendor required to provide economic impact study consultant that evaluated infrastructure, services, and economic impact of the agency on the surrounding area.
- Data procurement
•    Provide authority with a data request sheet following the project’s kick-off meeting. the data needs are also described below. upon receiving the requested data from authority in a usable format (e.g., excel or shapefile), the consultant shall mine and clean the data as necessary and make any additional requests in order to complete the procurement process. after the data have been analyzed, the consultant and authority will confirm the final data to be used as inputs into the research analysis. the consultant may also draw on its own research and data sources during the course of this project.
o    Ridership profile (demographics and employment data if available)
o    Ridership frequency for all years included in the analysis (data for peak vs. non-peak, route, and stop usage)
o    Ridership surveys and customer feedback, if available
o    Expenditures, for all years included in the analysis, organized by:
1.    Non-personnel o personnel (wages, salaries, zip codes) and employment 
2.    Capital investments for all years included in the analysis
3.    Revenues, by source (local vs. non-local) for all years included in the analysis 
4.    Current and proposed route and stop locations (shapefile)
5.    Proposed route improvements relevant to this study, including frequency and span
- Sales tax forecast
•    The consultant shall prepare a forecast of sales tax revenues for butler county for the 10-year period of 2025-2034.
•    The consultant shall then project revenues at varying increased sales tax rates such as 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0%.
•    While not providing forecasts of county-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, the consultant shall incorporate this information as it calibrates its forecasting model.
•    The consultant shall use a number of econometric and statistical techniques to forecast the expected sales tax revenues for butler county.
•    The dependent variable-sales tax collections-shall be adjusted to account for non-stationarity.
•    To deal with incongruences between monthly and quarterly data, the consultant shall determine the most appropriate correction, such as a predicted monthly value based on additional modeling of quarterly data or a conversion to quarterly sums.
•    The consultant shall ensure that the approaches applied to the forecast is theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous.
- Measure the economic impacts of authority operations and capital spending
•    Operations expenditures supplied by authority; the consultant shall calculate the economic impacts using an input-output model of the butler county economy. 
•    This shall include the direct and indirect spending generated by expenditures and employment during the year. 
•    To capture the spin-off effects of capital improvements, the same methodology shall be applied to construction costs and labor costs attributed to authority expansion and renovations.
- Analysis of ridership, perception, and demand for mass transit
1. Transit demand analysis
•    The consultant shall project population and job growth for butler county over a 10-year period. 
•    This projection shall include the number of new jobs by industry and general location of activity, as the data permit. 
•    The consultant shall also perform a historical analysis utilizing 2020, 2015, and 2010 data of businesses by industry within county by authority route and stop accessibility based on availability of historic route and stop shape files.
2. Characterization of commuter patterns and congestion impacts based on service enhancements
•    To the extent permitted by the available data, the consultant shall evaluate butler county’s reliance on automobiles, estimate yearly miles per person by commuting type, and compare this to other similar communities. 
•    This comparison shall help to contextualize not only the attitudinal beliefs of local citizens but also it shall take into account the geographic and built environment. 
•    This analysis also includes variables such as vehicle registrations, drive time to work, auto ownership by household size, future population trends, and a historical analysis of authority route connectivity to both businesses and areas of dense residence. additionally, the consultant shall quantify the costs of car ownership as well as mass transit dependence for butler county. 
•    The consultant shall review existing literature and data to characterize how expanded service for authority may result in lower use of automobiles, impacts on traffic congestion (cars removed), annual amount of driving delays, potential fuel savings, and environmental quality impacts.
- Telling the story
•    A final report shall be produced that can serve as a foundation for internal decision-making and communication to broader constituencies. 
•    This report shall include maps, tables, charts, and narrative that highlight the key findings of the analyses, and a write-up on the consultant’s methodology, definitions, and data to support the findings.

- Contract Period/Term: 5 years
- Questions/Inquires Deadline: December 29, 2025