Playing the EZ-Rider State Grant Money Game
Every agency or community that receives State or Federal monies should know that when you don't get an appropriations earmark you have to massage the funding formulas. The EZ-Rider debacle mentioned formulas, but finding out what goes into that formula is another matter. Well, TxDOT publishes transit statistics, and in these reports are discussions about the funding formulas.
Trust me, the numbers are mind-numbing. However, in the part of the FY2008 report some staff member will point out to the political appointees is the gist of the "formula":
Of the funds appropriated by the State of Texas to the 30 Urbanized Bus Systems, each entity got money based on a formula that was weighted at 65% needs and 35% performance.
Needs is easy. You take 65% of the money, and then dole it out based on your area's population percentage of the 30 Urbanized Bus Systems. Since this is based on the Census, unless new urban bus systems come on-line in a budgetary year this is a fixed amount.
Performance is a bit tougher. I'll let the report detail what goes into those numbers:
The state funding formula distributes urban performance funds based on a weighted average of four indicators. The funds are then allocated based on the relative performance of the urban service providers. These four performance-based indicators are:• Local investment per operational expense
• Unlinked passenger trips per vehicle revenue mile
• Vehicle revenue mile per operational expense
• Unlinked passenger trip per capita (Urban only)
So, things like more local funding improve your local investment score (or hide increased operational expense), while things like runaway overtime kill your local investment score. Also, a drop in fare and advertising revenue kills your local investment score.
The final 3 performance measures suffer when ridership drops or operational efficiency decreases. Negative indicators are things like driving planned routes while empty, fewer passengers per capita and rising costs per mile driven (caused by things like overtime).
However, looking at the FY2008 report, EZ-Rider was better than average in most of these categories. So, I speculate there are a couple of reasons why the State dropped their "Formula Funding" of EZ-Rider:
1) The State implemented a 5% across the board funding decrease for all programs, so every Bus System took at least a 5% hit, regardless of performance measures.
2) EZ-Rider's performance has been dropping relative to other systems in terms of ridership, efficiency and financial performance. This is supported by decreased ridership, lower fee collections and runaway operational expenses (mainly overtime).
So, Odessa may have reduced their funding by $15,000 this year, but it could have been easily made up by $15,000 in advertising revenue, fares, or operational savings and not affected the funding formula. Instead EZ-Rider has most likely spilled enough red ink to negatively impact the State allocation for years to come. So, a local bailout has implications now, and in the future.
Here's my takeaway from all of this:
EZ-Rider has been in control of their own destiny in terms of the "Funding Formula." Increase ridership, more State money. Increase fare collections, more State money. Decrease operating expenses, more State money. When you fail to do all three of these for the past couple of years you cannot come to the Cities of Midland and Odessa and ask for more local money to cover your shortfalls and improve the formula for future years.
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5 Comments
Excellent point Theo ! Give them more money and ,obviously , more people will ride the bus ...even me..maybe,,but certainly not in flu season .
Buildeth it and they shall cometh !
How simple ! Just give them more public money so they can get more public money in order to increase their size and lose more public money so the cycle may start all over ! Brilliant!
After five or six of these cycles I predict the bus biddness will have more employees than MISD and the head honcho will make more than the school superintendent.
My suggestion to get the ball rolling is for Midland to publicly cry out the need for Midland busses to be more attractive than Odessa busses.
That way many people from Odessa will come to Midland just to ride our busses ! How cool is that !
I'm thinking of styling our busses with painted flames coming from the engine housing , oversize tires in the rear and Lake pipes. Oh yes! and engines from Trace !
Where do we get the money to show the state our bus company has the money to get the money ?
Economic Development Funds !
The circle is unbroken .
Otto, I really like the idea of bus competition. The flames are perfect. What about wide, low-profile tires too? And some sort of hood scoop, of course.
What about a spoiler on the back of the bus? Since no one will be riding the bus, we need a way to keep the rear end on the ground. When the driver is working so hard and so fast...
Hell, we might not even need gasoline.
Let's just say that the busses HAVE run and that they ARE full. This is in compliance to Rob Long's notion that the Obama Administration is engaging in a war on reality.
Thank you for your approval regarding the Bus Beautification Program I have suggested, Theo .
I did not mention earlier, but wish I had , that we need to strike while the iron is HOT !
I have heard a rumor that the city of Andrews has been trying to put together their own bus system and is putting together their own Bus Beautification Plan to get state dollars to lose to get federal dollars to lose to insure more state dollars !
We must not lose our state and federal cash cow ! Let us be quick as a bunny and use those ED monies for what they were meant for ! Priming the Government teat !
Do we want to lose our bus system to Andrews? HECK NO !!!!! Act now !!!!..Before their High-school football team becomes 5A !
Let's throw our money at the Bus Company before it's too late and we lose our homes ! ...
To Andrews .
(We have Always been at war with Andrews. )
I've had a few moments to think a bit further about this and I think I have a way to save our beloved bus system AND get additional monies !
What if we scheduled busses to run by all the bars in town during their scheduled hours and asked for a grant from the feds to give free rides to drunks ! Thusly by doing this we are stopping drunken driving !
If one slurs their words and wants to go to Xbar we have taken them off the books as being a danger to others on the streets ! No matter if the individual (or individuals) doesn't own a car ! A free ride from bar to bar ,or home or motel or moms house , means the same thing ! A LOSS to local dollars !!..To be made up by State dollars and aided by Federal dollars to be later increased by overtime and additional personnel !
Some of you will say "Well , Otto , just WHERE are these dollars going to come from?"..Silly ! the Government will just print more !
So there !
Drunken driving is a serious problem and I am sure this program I have called "Gassed on the Bus" could be a model program throughout the U.S. bringing us lots of P.R. and more Federal Dollars !
The danger is ,of course , the evil cartel that runs Andrews . Quickly ! Quickly we must act ! Lest they hear of this fine plan and act first !
(We have always been at war with Andrews)
Nice article, Ospurt.
Government agencies, from the moment of their own inception, are imbued with their own raison d'être. Once, ONCE, I have heard about a government employee who said that his job wasn't needed and he wanted to do away with it. Some department of tea-tasting, I think, which might be relevant today, come to think of it.
I believe that if every single EZ-Rider bus were to travel empty, all the time, that the people in charge of it would still maintain that it's an essential government service and that they needed more money to make it work fine.
This is the same principle as the socialists who say that socialism would work fine, if it was ever tried. Gnostic hubris.