Hawke's Bay Regional Council chief executive Liz Lambert said there was a collective concern about the way this has been dealt with by the Government.
"In that it is effectively handing over what was a central government scheme to be probably entirely funded by local government without any consultation," she said.
Councillor Rick Barker said this will cause an "intense political problem" in the near future over what he says is a good scheme.
"This Government is wanting to curtail its costs (and) in this mix we have got a growing bill for transport," he said.
"So what I see happening here, and I may have got this wrong, is that rather for central government to tackle the problem itself it is going to shift the problem to the territorial authorities the regional councils.
"It will then back out so if the decision is to make changes to the gold card status it is going to be the territorial authorities who will have to make them and will have to carry the can."
Mr Foss said by and large he disagreed with Mr Barker's comments.
"There is nothing new in his comments, a number of meetings have been held to discuss these concerns and there will be more to come," he said.
Councillor Christine Scott said it was not up to ratepayers to foot the bill, that there were avenues such as the community services card which assisted in providing cheaper bus services to those who could not afford one.
She was concerned the council would be forced to provide free travel.
"This was a central-government-run scheme on the gold card it is not a ratepayer concern why can't we say that's the end of free travel?"
Councillor Rex Graham expressed sympathy towards the fact that it was not fair for the Government to do something like this.
"It would be a sad day if a community such as ours can't pick up a cost like that for a group of older people who can't drive cars or who can't afford them," he said.
