CTA board meeting update
The CTA board met today, and we are heartened by the fact that Governor Blagojevich and state legislators responded to the urgency of our situation and have appropriated $54.3 Million dollars to help CTA close its funding gap for 2005.
We expect that the grant agreement between the Illinois Department of Transportation and RTA will direct this one-time grant to the RTA for re-distribution to the CTA. Once the RTA assigns the $54.3 million dollars to CTA as state lawmakers intended, I will recommend that this board take action next month to rescind the service cuts scheduled for July 17th.
Lawmakers’ response to our situation is encouraging because it is a recognition how important CTA is to the vitality of mass transit in Northeastern Illinois. However, as we sit here today, we are painfully aware of the fact that this $54.3 million dollars, however much appreciated, is not the answer to our long-term problems. It is a band-aid to slow the bleeding but you cannot treat a gaping wound with a band-aid.
The emergency funding from the state will help CTA address the shortfall in our 2005 operating budget. But in just a few short weeks, CTA staff will present this board with the FY 2006 budget proposal and I can tell you now, there will be a huge projected deficit.
CTA faces a structural deficit, not a one-time shortfall. CTA’s public operating funding of $442 million has not changed since 2002. In the past three years, fuel prices have increased 111 percent, health care costs 43 percent, and CTA’s collectively bargained wage rates have increased 8 percent. This is just a snapshot of the 22-year erosion of CTA’s funding, in which CTA’s purchasing power has declined nearly one percent each year, every year.
That is one of the reasons that we welcome an audit by the Illinois Department of Transportation and a review by the State’s Auditor General. We are absolutely certain this audit will help us make the case for a long-term funding solution for CTA. We are grateful for this one-time grant but mindful of the serious budget deficits we will continue to face until this situation is addressed.
We expect that the grant agreement between the Illinois Department of Transportation and RTA will direct this one-time grant to the RTA for re-distribution to the CTA. Once the RTA assigns the $54.3 million dollars to CTA as state lawmakers intended, I will recommend that this board take action next month to rescind the service cuts scheduled for July 17th.
Lawmakers’ response to our situation is encouraging because it is a recognition how important CTA is to the vitality of mass transit in Northeastern Illinois. However, as we sit here today, we are painfully aware of the fact that this $54.3 million dollars, however much appreciated, is not the answer to our long-term problems. It is a band-aid to slow the bleeding but you cannot treat a gaping wound with a band-aid.
The emergency funding from the state will help CTA address the shortfall in our 2005 operating budget. But in just a few short weeks, CTA staff will present this board with the FY 2006 budget proposal and I can tell you now, there will be a huge projected deficit.
CTA faces a structural deficit, not a one-time shortfall. CTA’s public operating funding of $442 million has not changed since 2002. In the past three years, fuel prices have increased 111 percent, health care costs 43 percent, and CTA’s collectively bargained wage rates have increased 8 percent. This is just a snapshot of the 22-year erosion of CTA’s funding, in which CTA’s purchasing power has declined nearly one percent each year, every year.
That is one of the reasons that we welcome an audit by the Illinois Department of Transportation and a review by the State’s Auditor General. We are absolutely certain this audit will help us make the case for a long-term funding solution for CTA. We are grateful for this one-time grant but mindful of the serious budget deficits we will continue to face until this situation is addressed.
posted by Carole Brown | 6/09/2005 01:33:00 PM
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