After years of pushing to finally get special transportation for senior citizens and the disabled and to have it paid by their MBTA assessments, four area towns now find they have to come up with the funding.

Wrentham, Norfolk, Foxboro and Franklin joined the Greater Attleboro-Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA) last summer when Dial-A-Ride, a van-type transportation for senior citizens and disabled residents, began in the towns.

Special legislation is supposed to allow the towns to pay for the service through the assessments they had paid to the MBTA.

Norfolk, which has a train stop, has been paying about $210,000 a year for its assessment.

Wrentham's MBTA assessment is about $60,000. The towns still are to have their assessments reduced, but local officials have been told there will be a year delay.

"There is no offset. There is a year lag," Norfolk Town Administrator Jack Hathaway said of a $100,000 charge.

It doesn't help coming during an especially difficult budget year starting July 1. "It is a bad year for us," Hathaway said.

The legislation didn't spell out a delay.

"It is not that bad for us, but we are in the same boat," Wrentham Town Administrator Jack McFeeley said. "We have to pay two times. It is totally unexpected."

Wrentham has to pay GATRA $70,000 and the MBTA $60,000, McFeeley said.

The towns' legislators, including state Rep. Richard Ross and state Sen. Scott Brown, both R-Wrentham, are working on getting the funds sooner.

Other than the unexpected cost, the transportation service is running fine, officials say.

The seniors and disabled are getting much-needed transportation to doctor and dentist appointments as well as visiting nursing homes, the hairdresser, post offices, drugstores, grocery stores and other locations.

The new service has been so successful, additional vehicles have been added, and in November long-distance medical transportation was included via a bus that goes into Boston. Many in the four towns hope regular GATRA bus service for the general public will eventually follow the Dial-A-Ride. Plainville has both types of service.

Residents over the age of 60 and disabled residents can fill out a Dial-A-Ride application at the senior centers. They call for the service, which operates five days a week, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 1-800-585-8294, and get picked up at their homes.

STEPHEN PETERSON can be reached at 508-236-0377 or at speterson@thesunchronicle.com.