The city is turning to the county’s transit agency to manage its service, and the city’s general fund won’t be impacted.

The city introduced legislation Tuesday to contract with the Butler County Regional Transit Authority to run the day-to-day operations of Middletown Transit Service. Council is expected to vote on the contract — which is good for one year and automatically renews without a 120-day written termination notice — in two weeks. Butler County RTA would receive $5,000 a month from MTS grant funds, according to the proposed contract.

“We really think it’s going to be a value-add to the city and the public,” said Carla Lakatos, Butler County RTA executive director.

With the retirement of MTS manager Steve Murphy later this year, city leaders had been looking at options to replacing the long-time manager. One option was to contract with an existing transit agency to operate MTS, which in 2012 operated with $1.5 million.

Community Revitalization Director Doug Adkins said bringing in Butler County RTA seemed only natural.

“They’re well versed in our operations and they’re a logical fit to assume the day-to-day operations, and that also fits in our goal of regionalizing our different services,” he said.

Adkins said any changes to things such as rates or altering the operations would still require city council approval, and all employees would remain city employees.

“They’re doing the scheduling, the grant management and those types of things, to make sure they bus drivers are scheduled,” he said.

Butler County RTA already operates in Middletown, providing the after-hour door-to-door service for residents and shuttles to and from Oxford and Hamilton.

The Middletown-Oxford shuttle has “taken off,” Lakatos said. A year ago, the shuttle averaged 200 to 300 riders a month. In October, the shuttle averaged nearly 1,000 riders. The Middletown-Hamilton shuttle is also gaining in popularity, she said. That shuttle averaged 400 riders a month last year and is up to 600 to 700 riders a month.

Near the end of Murphy’s tenure, Butler County RTA officials will shadow the 30-year employee that’s been managing the MTS since 1991. Lakatos said they will look to understand the operation “and look for every opportunity to really leverage the federal and state funds.”

In the first six months of taking over the management, Butler County RTA will develop a plan to look at strategies to leverage state and federal funds, “and perhaps even reduce the local contribution,” Lakatos said.

The fruits of that plan may result in improvements to the system’s service, she said.

“This is our business,” Lakatos said. “We really think it’s going to be a value-add to the city and the public. We will uncover every rock.”