JOHN CHARLES AT THE STATE HOUSE from al m on Vimeo.
I agree that the board should be changed, but I also agree
with Neil McFarlane, that actually doing that will have little effect on by
itself, on the problems on the agency. Their
completely upside down on the on their match between expenses and revenue this
particular document(s) (3 total given),
which future historian would refer to as Trimet's “suicide note” (their
financials) describes they can’t survive,
they would be completely collapsing within 15yrs, but they imply, that there is an window of opportunity
between now and fiscal 2017 which I think is false, because they have been looting their trust
funds their down $1.2 billion, these are trust funds, money is supposed to be there for promises
made to employees and past employees and their $900 million OPEB (Other
Post-Employment Benefits) obligations is 0% funded, their other trusts funds
67% funded 52% funded, the Trimet board meets twice a month, I’m pretty sure
you don’t wake up one day and discover wow 1.2bill is gone what happen, we are
talking entire generations of board members
showing up at meetings, looting
the trust funds to pay for other stuff, that to me is a complete failure of
governance and it goes back over 20yrs,
so simply replacing board member by itself would not be enough because the
agency is soo deep into something, they
owe so many people soo much money they can’t on wine but, actually, you need to decide on how you are
going to reconfigure Trimet, they’re not going to exist. A key thing I want to
point out is, I want to (give) some
quotes from trimet's 20 year forecast , published on their website in
December, which is that revenue is not
the problem, this is their CFO stating this,
“trimet's operating revenue per capita are 70% higher than peer
agencies, the payroll tax is a reliable and growing source of revenue, you may
know that the payroll tax rate goes up every January pursuant to your
legislation is likely to go up every January through 2024 also pursuant to your
authorization, passenger fares have grown by an average of 6.8 percent annually
over the past 10yrs it’s not a revenue problem.” In fact, all funds budgeted went up by 125% in the last
8yrs and service went down by 14%
something of a bureaucratic miracle that revenue goes in and nothing comes
out. Benefits verses wages Trimet benefit are 157% of wages, I looked at
the top 15 transit districts in the country, Trimet always wants to act like
it’s a big time transit entity, there is no one even close to that the second
is NY city MTA where their benefits are 88% of wages ,that followed by
Washington DC, New Jersey transit are at
83% the lower end is Denver RTD which is
34% and Miami Dade County is at 33% , so even in an industry known for high
cost of labor, Trimet is completely off
the chart and there is not going to be a solution to traditional bargaining,
because the basic template has been approved and reapproved and reapproved by the board so many times, there is no going
back. So another problem is rail it is
unsustainable and cannibalizing bus service, every time they build a rail
project and MLP, as an example, they will be selling $60 million of bonds, paid back by future
payroll taxes which is cannibalizing its own general fund, and bond holders get
paid before anyone else does. On the Senior
Lean Debt Chart, that is when they have all this debt piles up, the payroll tax
money goes into trust funds, then goes
out to Wall Street bond holders. Trimet
never gets to touch it, so bond holders will get theirs, but what happens to
actual riders. The key thing that I only discovered recently, in their 20yr
forecast; is that in 2027, just as the gap between operations and revenue and
expenses is its widest, they will have to float $327 million in revenue bonds
in fiscal year 2027, to replace 36 of the original rail cars and purchase 12
new ones, at that point the Senior Lean Debt Chart completely blows up and they
simply won’t exist, “if” they are around at that point. So, they have broken
promises to everybody, they broken promise you when you authorized increases in
payroll taxes in 2003, they promised that service would go up, fact is that it’s
gone down, they promised employees for
benefits upon retirement and there is no money in the trust fund or at least, one
of the big trust funds. They promised
FTA, when they took federal money for light rail lines they would have levels
of service and those levels of service are not there, plus, the yellow line and the green line are
violating Full Funding Grants, so to me the Trimet board has no credibility.
John
Charles, President of Cascade Policy institute.
There was more, you can listen here: http://rantingsofatrimetbusdriver.blogspot.com/2013/05/yestedays-full-hearing-on-hb-3316.html
Starting @ 33 mark, to 40min mark. This is about 95% accurate I may have missed
a phrase or two, but this is the gist of it all.
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