(The following article by Jere Downs was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on June 14.)
PHILADELPHIA — As SEPTA and its largest union approach their third contract deadline this year at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow, there is talk behind the scenes of yet another contract extension.
“It is something we are willing to discuss,” Bob Bedard, spokesman for the Transport Workers Union Local 234, said yesterday.
Whether transit operators, mechanics and cashiers will contribute to monthly health-care premiums remains unsettled, along with most other issues, union president Jeff Brooks said yesterday.
“Nothing has been resolved,” he said.
SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker said, “We are willing to discuss an extension. Nothing happened today. They will talk again tomorrow.”
SEPTA’s pact with the Transport Workers Union was first extended for 30 days, from March 15 to April 15. A second extension of 60 days ends tonight. In the event of a work stoppage, only Regional Rail trains would run in Philadelphia and the suburbs, stranding 700,000 daily riders who use buses, subways and trolleys.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rendell has requested that local officials vote on June 23 to shift a total of $215 million in road funds to stanch staggering red ink at SEPTA through the end of his term in office in December 2006.
Of that money, $92 million would fill SEPTA’s projected budget gap for the fiscal year beginning July 1. An additional $34 million would pay for bus and vehicle overhaul.
Rendell’s announcement in March that he would transfer a $412 million road-fund windfall to stabilize transit agencies statewide effectively ended years of bickering between the governor and the state legislature over how to raise revenue for struggling transit agencies.
Some GOP legislative leaders say Rendell has let a long-term transit funding solution languish in recent months.
“Roads and bridges are clearly not a priority for this governor,” said Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Majority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson).
“It takes a legislative solution to do anything,” Rendell’s spokeswoman, Kate Philips, responded. “The governor is being responsible in a challenging fiscal time.”