The RTA board is fairly divided, it seems, between those with their eyes on the money and those with their eyes on the mission.
Board GM Joe Calabrese called a special meeting on Thursday to discuss which of the possible money-saving tactics, enacted last year at budget time, that they would now have to employ to stay afloat. Most of the discussion concerned whether the agency’s dozen Community Circulators should be saved, covered by even steeper fare increases across the board.
“Sales tax revenues, the agency’s primary funding source, are 10.7 percent lower this year than 2008,” , a loss of nearly $19 million, Calabrese noted matter-of-factly. “The options are: We can raise fares and reduce service; we can raise fares only; and reduce service only. The only other [option] is one I can’t find, and that’s to balance our budget.”
Calabrese brought staffers forward to explain, in detail, how exactly the shit has hit the fan. The money-crunchers, essentially: “It’s not pretty.”
The agency faces a $5.5 million deficit at the end of this year, if it doesn’t take action. The sales tax dip is “five times worse than the worse year in RTA’s history,” said Calabrese, and from ’02 to last year, the state has reduced funding by about 62 percent. He claimed that staff and efficiencies couldn’t be stretched any further.
At budget time last year, a fare increase of as much as 50 cents and service cuts were enacted to offset rising fuel costs and a projected $20 million deficit, but then the board deferred the changes — enacting a quarter hike and far fewer cuts in routes, in hopes of finding more funding assistance. It didn’t come through.
“We’re here today because, just a few days ago, we really thought that, as a staff, we could make it through without these cuts,” said Calabrese. “We no longer feel that way.”
This article appears in Jul 15-21, 2009.
The last sentence is so true! We need a public transit system way, way more than we need a convention-center-and-bedpan-showroom-disguised-as-a-psydo-cutting-edge-medical-mart!
HELLO, I don’t see the need to raise the bus fare, for what if you people lower the bus fare you will see that will make up for any loss that RTA has loss. One more thing I as a pore person is not willing to pay those crazy prices and I do mean crazy because you people can’t budget the books right.
If the agency faces a 5.5 million dollar deficit, why not stop paying the board and incompetant staff this year? That’ll recover AT LEAST that amount.
So all the sacrifices which the taxpayers of Cleveland have made already haven’t done the job?? Perhaps the investment in a Euclid Corridor Project may have been premature, huh? Maybe cutting out circulators while increasing the size of buses in a humorous “accordian” fashion (often called “Parma” buses or “Polish” buses by the laughing detractors) was an equally bad idea considering the extra costs trickled down to the riders? Or maybe it is time to get an oversight committee to supervise these spendthrift projects and cut out unnecessary expenses. Maybe it is the right time to “Just Say No” to any more upcoming projects until RTA can balance its budget in a responsible, accountable manner. With no more unexpected cost overruns. Or maybe it is time that the PEOPLE of Cleveland votes for new projects before they are adopted by greedy developers who don’t care about maintaining the afteraffects. Most of them are out-of-town developers anyway. Why should they care about the long-term effects to our town?