Audio clip
Tom Dugan
PDF: CARTA budget presentation
Rising fuel costs are putting a crunch on the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority, and the agency will have to cut services if it does not get extra funding from local governments, Executive Director Tom Dugan said Thursday.
“It’s the worst financial crisis I’ve seen in 30 years here,” Mr. Dugan said after presenting the agency’s proposed 2008-09 budget to the CARTA board.
Mr. Dugan said diesel fuel costs $3.48 per gallon now, up from the $3.25-a-gallon figure he used when he presented his budget request to the Chattanooga City Council about two weeks ago. He said every one-cent increase in diesel costs CARTA an extra $5,000 per year.
The authority is requesting more than $4.2 million from the city for the upcoming fiscal year, up from more than $3.7 million budgeted in the current year. With fuel costs continuing to rise, the agency now may seek another $150,000 from the city, Mr. Dugan said.
The agency also is asking for $218,900 from Hamilton County in the 2008-09 fiscal year, which is more than double the $96,600 from the county budgeted for this year.
Mayor Ron Littlefield said Thursday afternoon that the city is willing to take a look at CARTA’s budget request, but he said municipal government is grappling with the same issues of high fuel costs.
“We’ll listen to them, but I really can’t give them a lot of encouragement,” Mr. Littlefield said.
Mr. Dugan showed figures to CARTA board members Thursday illustrating that local funding per person is lower here than in a number of similarly sized communities across America. CARTA’s local per capita funding was $10.21 for the 2005-06 fiscal year, and local money accounted for 27 percent of the agency’s transit funds in that year, according to Mr. Dugan’s presentation.
“We believe that we should receive more local funding,” he said.
For the last two fiscal years and the current fiscal year, CARTA has operated over budget and had to move some capital funds into operations, which means putting off repairs and purchasing needs, Mr. Dugan said.
In the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, the agency will be $150,000 to $225,000 over budget, he said. But Mr. Dugan said CARTA will have a balanced budget in the new fiscal year.
City Councilwoman Linda Bennett, chairwoman of the council’s Budget, Finance and Personnel Committee, said CARTA’s three consecutive years of unbalanced budgets “hurts the case for a large amount of additional funding.”
“This has been a situation that (the agency) knew was coming, and the rising fuel costs just really escalated it,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dugan said the agency plans to increase bus fares later this year. For example, he said, it is possible that the adult base fare will rise from $1.25 to $1.50.
Also, CARTA officials are looking at gaining new dollars from electric shuttle sponsorships and advertisements on the bus schedule, he said.
As the authority looks to a difficult new fiscal year, Councilman Manny Rico said many residents in his district, which includes Alton Park and St. Elmo, depend on the authority’s bus service to get to their jobs or to travel to the grocery store.
“How do you determine where to cut?” he said of potential service reductions.
WHAT’S NEXT
The Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority presents its 2008-09 fiscal year budget in a joint city-Hamilton County hearing May 8.
