(The following article by Jere Downs and Mario F. Cattabiani was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on December 8.)
PHILADELPHIA — At the request yesterday of Gov. Rendell, U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta agreed to meet with a delegation of state officials in an attempt to help resolve the financial crisis at SEPTA and other transit agencies in Pennsylvania.
State officials are looking into the legality of diverting federal highway funds to transit operations to avoid fare hikes and service cuts.
“The governor is concerned that we know all of the options available and that we are doing everything by the book,” Kate Philips, the governor’s press secretary, said.
Roy Kienitz, Rendell’s deputy chief of staff who specializes in transportation matters, will lead the delegation, which will include top officials of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. A date for the meeting has not been set.
“But time is of the essence,” Philips said.
The SEPTA board voted last week to raise the cash fare from $2 to $3 and reduce service by 20 percent to close a $62 million budget gap. But the city’s representatives on the board vetoed that plan, which gave Rendell time to craft a stop-gap funding plan before the board meets again on Dec. 16 to consider a veto override.
Michael Masch, Rendell’s budget secretary, said the governor’s problem is that federal funds are legally designed to finance capital projects, not pay for operating expenses such as fuel and salaries.
“It’s not just a matter of the governor deciding he wants to do something,” Masch said. “We have to comply with federal and state laws. If we can, it would be desirable for us to keep the [transit] agencies going. We are exploring that. Right now, it’s not clear that we can even technically make this work.”
That is dithering by the Rendell administration, countered Steve Miskin, spokesman for the state House Republican Caucus.
“They are looking for excuses,” he said. “If the governor wants to lead, he can lead.”
Rendell and Republican leaders clashed last month when the legislature adjourned for the year without solving the transit crisis.
With an eye toward a long-term solution that the legislature will take up next year, House Majority Leader Samuel Smith (R., Jefferson) is sending a delegation of his own next week to meet with SEPTA officials and tour the agency.
“We need to see what the true extent of the issues are since we can’t rely on the administration,” Miskin said. “We need to look at it firsthand.”
Smith’s delegation is expected to meet with SEPTA officials on Dec. 14 or 15 and will include Republican Reps. Rick Geist of Altoona, the head of the House Transportation Committee; Tom Killion of Delaware County; and John Evans of Erie.
The long-term solution promises to be more difficult, but a consultant hired by the state says one must be found.
Hired last year by Rendell to scour SEPTA for waste, former Amtrak chief financial officer Arlene Friner found instead that a lack of state funding over the last decade is the fundamental weakness crippling transit agencies statewide. She issued an interim report a year ago that cited “a structural funding problem that dates back to the mid-1990s.”
In a second interim report by Friner obtained by The Inquirer, Friner offered more ways to improve funding and streamline transit spending.
The new report, though, was not sent to legislators until Nov. 24. By that time, they had left Harrisburg for the year after a disagreement between Rendell and Republican leaders.
“Don’t you think this information might have been useful when we were deliberating this stuff?” Miskin said.
Friner has been working on a long-term strategy to streamline transit funding and expenditures, Masch said. This fall, he said he asked her to refocus her efforts after SEPTA and Pittsburgh’s Port Authority of Allegheny County threatened to end weekend service unless the state provided more funding.
“When that happened, I asked Arlene Friner to put together that very brief document,” Masch said of the recent 23-page report.
One place the state could find more money for transit is the lottery fund, Friner suggested. The lottery reimburses SEPTA for free senior rides at the $1.30 token rate. Paying SEPTA the $2 cash fare for seniors could net $24 million more annually for transit statewide.
Masch noted that lottery funds are fully allocated within the state budget. He declined comment on Friner’s recommendations, saying her work is not finished.
“We’ll be prepared to talk about it, once we have something that is completed,” he said. He declined to specify a date when the Friner project would be finished.
In her report, Friner also noted the disconnect between state funding and SEPTA’s current $427 million annual capital budget, which this year includes $117 million in projects geared toward improving or expanding SEPTA’s Regional Rail, subway, trolley and bus service.
Friner suggests that SEPTA’s capital planning should be realistically linked to available state resources.
What’s needed, she concluded, is for the state to “prioritize operating and capital needs,” for transit and “understand practical time frames for capital investment implementation.”
And it would be more efficient, Friner reported, if the state joined with SEPTA to efficiently spend the transit agency’s capital budget, particularly for new rail cars and buses.