LEWISTON — Eleven Community Concepts workers in Lewiston and Wilton are losing their jobs as the nonprofit organization’s transportation system is partially taken over by a Connecticut-based charity.

Predicted revenue loss forced Community Concepts to end its van service on May 1, eliminating three positions in Lewiston. Another eight jobs will be lost in August, said Laurie Winsor, Community Concepts’ chief operating officer.

The latter jobs are mostly people who answer phone calls from people seeking rides. The rides will continue, though.

In a bid to leverage about $6 million more in federal funding, the state bid out the job of answering the calls from people needing rides. Coordinated Transportation Services, based in Ansonia, Conn., won the contract for the work to oversee much of Maine.

The change is scheduled for Aug. 1.

“Under the current system, we’re responsible to make sure we can place everybody who calls for a ride with a volunteer who can take them,” Winsor said. “That piece of work will flow to the broker.”

Locally, the drivers will still be volunteering for Community Concepts, which works throughout Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties. The agency will schedule its drivers and make sure they meet all federal standards.

Together, those 220 drivers complete an average of 1,300 trips per day.

And there’s worry that they may be upset by the changes. Though they are not paid for their time, they are currently reimbursed per mile for the use of their personal vehicles.

Already, two volunteer drivers have left over planned changes to the reimbursement. And the change is still almost eight weeks away.

“The rubber hasn’t met the road, yet,” Koriene Low, Community Concept’s director of transportation and corporate technologies, said.

Under the current plan, Community Concepts drivers are reimbursed 41 cents per mile for their travel, whether or not a client is in the vehicle.

The new plan would set the rate higher, as much as 55 cents per mile, but reimburse drivers only for the miles in which a client is riding.

Winsor and Low said they are hopeful that most volunteers will stay. They are hoping to keep the effects on the drivers as low as possible.

The agency’s dispatchers use software that measures the distance between driver and client, highlighting the drivers who live nearby in both miles and travel time.

“We are hoping it reduces the amount of time the driver is without a passenger,” Low said. Though some trips may not pay as much as they once did, she believes that most drivers will see their reimbursement checks remain strong over the course of several days.

“Maybe we can make them as whole as we can,” she said.

The changes were coming, Stefanie Nadeau, the state’s director of MaineCare services, said.

The decision not to pay volunteers for so-called “no load” miles is part of federal rules, which must be met in order to receive the federal money.

Nadeau said she was unaware that jobs were lost at Community Concepts, and she did not know of losses at other Maine agencies making the switch.

However, she worries that the number of volunteers may decline.

“It’s a valid concern,” she said. She repeated Winsor’s warning, that any gap created between shrinking volunteer numbers and the demand for rides must be met by Coordinated Transportation Services, which is slated to open a call center in Lewiston.

Meanwhile, Winsor and Low are scheduling meetings with drivers to keep them up to date on changes. A first session was held on May 6 and drew about 150 people. More were scheduled for next week but were postponed when the start date was extended from July 1 to Aug. 1.

“We really work to be as upfront and informative as we can,” Winsor said.

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