Hendry Glades Transportation System: Who Drives It, What the County Pays, and Where NEMT Companies Fit

Hendry and Glades counties share one community ride program, the Hendry Glades Transportation System. Hendry County coordinates it from LaBelle for both counties, one contracted operator drives the door-to-door trips, and the county commission takes up its state agreements and grants. For a NEMT owner around LaBelle, Clewiston, or Moore Haven, it sets the local price of a rural trip and shows which rides nobody covers.

The state program behind it, Transportation Disadvantaged, buys trips for residents who cannot get around on their own because of a disability, low income, or age, and each service area has one community transportation coordinator that arranges them. Medicaid enrollment and Florida’s van, driver, and insurance rules are in the Florida guide.

Who runs the Hendry Glades Transportation System

Hendry County became the coordinator for both counties on January 1, 2021. Before that, Goodwill of Southwest Florida and its Good Wheels, Inc. held the role from May 1991 until Good Wheels suspended all operations on February 19, 2020. MV Transportation then served as the emergency coordinator, starting service on February 24, 2020 and running it through December 31, 2020.

The county won a second term in 2025. Its board asked to be redesignated on February 25, 2025, the Heartland Regional Transportation Planning Organization approved on March 12, 2025, and state agreement TD2505 went to the board at a special meeting on June 23, 2025. The agreement runs from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2030.

The state report classes the program as a complete brokerage: the county provides no rides itself. Every door-to-door trip goes to its contracted operator, Transitions Commute Solutions, LLC, which also recruits the drivers. Hendry County staff manage that contract, and riders who cannot settle a problem with Transitions call the county at 863-612-4727.

Glades County is part of the same service area and pays toward its residents’ trips. The program’s rider office is in the United Way House, 133 North Bridge Street, LaBelle. The county also runs STREAM buses: the Gold Line between Clewiston and Belle Glade, the Green Line inside LaBelle, and one morning and one evening Express run linking LaBelle, Pioneer, Clewiston, and Moore Haven, for a $2 fare.

How riders use it

The 2025-2030 service plan and the county’s rider page set these rules:

• Who qualifies. A Glades or Hendry resident with no other way to travel who is under 18 or over 60, has household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, or has a documented disability. Registration renews every two years, and a rider is treated as eligible if the county has not decided within five business days.
• Booking. Call 877-935-4487, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at least two days ahead. Spanish speakers can call 407-473-3338.
• Hours. Door-to-door service runs Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., in vehicles the county lists as all wheelchair accessible.
• Fare. $2 each way for unsponsored trips. Medicaid trips ride free.
• No-shows. A rider who does not cancel at least an hour ahead is a no-show: a warning first, then 30, 60, and 90 day suspensions within 12 months.

Rides leaving the two counties are rationed. Trips to Belle Glade, West Palm Beach, and Loxahatchee run on Tuesdays only, and trips to Fort Myers and Cape Coral run on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every out-of-county appointment must be before 11:30 a.m., the van may pick up as much as three hours early, and returns wait until a vehicle is free.

Hendry and Glades in numbers

Hendry carries more than four times the trips of Glades, at a far lower cost per trip, as the state’s report for fiscal 2024-25 shows:

Fiscal 2024-25	Hendry	Glades
Total trips	14,169	3,179
Medical trips	6,851	2,911
Trips paid by the state trust fund	3,826	1,952
Trips by the contracted operator	7,757	3,179
Trips by coordination contractors	6,412	0
Vehicles and drivers	11 and 21	4 and 17
Cost per trip	$63.59	$104.34
Unmet trip requests	14	6

Hendry’s trips grew from 9,072 two years earlier to 14,169, and its total expenses reached $900,995. Glades spent $331,697 on its 3,179 trips.

What Hendry County pays for a trip

Three rates matter here, and they differ. The service plan’s rate model, adopted by the Local Coordinating Board on July 23, 2025, sets a rate of $103.48 a trip for both ambulatory and wheelchair riders. The state trip grant pays less: $72 a trip from July 2025 to June 2026, and $75 from July 1, 2026. What the county actually pays its operator sits between them.

A county agenda item for the board’s July 28, 2026 meeting lays out the money:

• Operator rate. Transitions is paid a negotiated $83.45 a trip from January 1 to December 31, 2026, the same for ambulatory and wheelchair trips.
• Six months of cost. Trips from January 1 to June 30, 2026 cost the county $1,079,322.56 for both counties.
• How it was covered. The item set against that cost $324,133 received from the 2025-26 state Transportation Disadvantaged grant, $415,960.48 from the Florida Department of Transportation, and $142,910.26 from Glades County. The county’s transportation trust fund covered the remaining $196,318.82.
• The 2026-27 grant. State contract G3S83, starting July 1, 2026, totals $366,471: $329,820 in state funds, a $36,646 local match, and $5 in voluntary dollars, paid out at about $27,485 a month.

Staff wrote that they are asked each year to propose a lower trip rate, so more trips can be billed to the state, but rising labor rates have kept it from falling. The county pays one rate for both kinds of trip on purpose, to count more eligible trips and win more state money later. For your own pricing, $83.45 is what the public program pays for a wheelchair trip in this area. Compare it with your cost per trip before you bid on anything here.

Where a private NEMT company fits

The service plan lets the county contract with more transportation operators, each approved by the Local Coordinating Board. It promises no number of vehicles, hours, or trips. Contracts may be renegotiated yearly with rate changes allowed, the county may rebid after any contract year, and carriers are paid by the trip at the rate in their carrier contract. The coordinator must pay a subcontracted operator within seven days of being paid itself.

What a carrier signs up for in Hendry and Glades:

• Insurance. $500,000 combined single limit for bodily injury and property damage, including liability to riders, plus $1 million general liability. See NEMT insurance requirements.
• Markings. COMMUNITY TRANSPORTATION in 2-inch block letters, PHONE 1-877-935-4487 beneath it, “Operated by” and your name on both rear quarters, a unit number on the back, and a complaint sign above the windshield. The outside signs may be magnetic.
• Drivers. A favorable FDLE background check, first aid and CPR training every two years, a name badge, and federal transit drug and alcohol testing for every safety-sensitive job.
• Operations. One backup vehicle for every six in service, working air conditioning and heat, two-way radios or phones, a 30-minute pickup window inside the two counties, and the system’s 85% on-time standard.
• Accidents. Notify the coordinator at once and file a written report with a management analysis within 24 hours.

Coordination contracts

An agency that drives its own clients holds a coordination contract instead. Three were on the board’s June 23, 2025 special meeting agenda, each for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2030: Hope Hospice and Community Services and Lighthouse of Southwest Florida, both in Fort Myers, and Sunrise Community of Southwest Florida in Clewiston, which carries its own residents. These agencies bring their own funding, so the route suits an agency with clients, not a van company looking for trips.

Rides the program leaves open

The service plan lists weekend service and out-of-county medical trips among the area’s unmet needs, and limited service because of funding among its barriers. The rationed out-of-county days are the clearest opening: a Hendry or Glades resident with an afternoon appointment in Fort Myers or West Palm Beach, or a coast appointment on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday, gets no program ride. Riders who do not qualify can still buy a program trip at full cost, which the plan prices near taxi rates, so that is the price your private-pay coast runs compete with. Read long-distance medical transport before you set a price for those runs.

The Glades/Hendry Local Coordinating Board meets at least once a quarter. Its next meeting is set for October 28, 2026, 10:30 a.m. to noon, in LaBelle. The board must approve any new operator, so it is the place to introduce your company to county transit staff.

Licenses and local paperwork

Hendry County’s ambulance certificate does not reach wheelchair or stretcher vans. Section 1-10-144 of its code requires a county certificate only for advanced and basic life support services, and paragraph (6) exempts vehicles for riders who must use a stretcher or wheelchair vehicle and need no medical care on the way. State rules still apply; see Florida NEMT licensing.

The county’s taxicab ordinance is the one to check. Article VI of chapter 1-12 requires a taxicab business license, an operator’s license for each driver, and a license for each vehicle seating 4 to 15 people, driver included, that carries passengers for hire in unincorporated Hendry County, off a fixed route, to places the riders choose. It exempts carriers under contract with the county as coordinator, but it names no exemption for Medicaid broker trips. Licensed vehicles need $100,000 per person, $300,000 per accident, and $100,000 property damage coverage, and the board sets the fees by resolution. Ask county code enforcement at 863-675-5319 whether your vans need these licenses before you take broker trips. The ordinance does not apply inside LaBelle or Clewiston.

A base in Hendry needs a county business tax receipt from the Tax Collector, 863-675-5280, before you start work. You can apply online. Receipts expire every September 30 and can be renewed after July 1, late renewals cost up to 25% more, and a business starting between April 1 and September 30 pays a prorated fee. Inside the LaBelle or Clewiston city limits, you may need a city receipt too.

Medicaid rides in Hendry and Glades

Both counties sit in Medicaid Region F under section 409.966 of the Florida Statutes. Under the state’s NEMT waiver for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027, MTM Health books rides for members outside a health plan, at 1-844-239-5974. MTM’s 2025 capacity table counted 14 vehicles in Hendry (8 cabs and 6 wheelchair lift vehicles) and 12 in Glades (7 and 5), with no stretcher vehicle in either. Modivcare’s 2025 table has no row for either county.

The state Medicaid agency paid for none of the program’s trips in either county in 2024-25, so Medicaid work comes through the brokers. Sunshine Health holds most of the plan members in both counties:

Plan	Hendry members	Glades members	Ride broker
Sunshine Health	6,356	564	Alivi
Humana	1,697	146	Modivcare
Simply Healthcare	1,617	117	Ride2MD
Community Care Plan	458	37	Modivcare

Those counts are members of the main Medicaid plans on August 31, 2026, when Hendry had 10,183 of them and Glades 864. The ride brokers are the ones AHCA’s subcontractor report lists for each plan for the second quarter of 2026.

What to do first in Hendry and Glades

1. Call county transit staff at 863-612-4727. Ask whether the county will add a contract carrier and when the Transitions contract ends.
2. Get your Hendry business tax receipt, and a LaBelle or Clewiston receipt if your base is inside a city.
3. Price insurance at $500,000 auto and $1 million general liability, the carrier minimum here.
4. Enroll with Florida Medicaid and apply to Alivi first, then Modivcare, Ride2MD, and MTM Health. MTM’s 2025 network listed no stretcher vehicle in either county.
5. Ask code enforcement at 863-675-5319 whether your vans need taxicab licenses for broker trips outside city limits.
6. Attend the Local Coordinating Board on October 28, 2026 in LaBelle.
7. Market the rides the program does not run: afternoon coast appointments, coast trips on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and Sunday rides.

Next door, Lee County runs its program through LeeTran, and Highlands County shares the same planning organization. Read rural NEMT before you price long, empty return runs out of LaBelle and Clewiston.