At this point, we believe most of our readers are aware of the questionable vote in 2006 when the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) was successful in passing a bond issue.
As reported in the July 18 Az Star front page headline, the 2006 ballot underfunded the 35 road projects by a total of $250 million, meaning projects faced a shortfall before they ever got started. A cost estimate done by an RTA consultant before the election showed the projects would actually cost $250 million more than what voters were told in the campaign to get them to approve the plan in May 2006.
Click here to read the full Az Star article here.
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5 comments:
Typical mismanagement. Can I sell you a nice hotel near the convention center in Tucson?
Please do not vote for tax increases. The money, sadly, will only go to waste.
Nombe is correct. The tax money always goes to waste.
I am not surprised that the taxpayers have been swindled AGAIN! We're constantly told that if we approve ABC tax, we will receive XYZ return. Once the tax is approved (whether for real or through election fraud) suddenly the TRUTH comes out that the people have been swindled again. We never really get what we were promised.
And yet, no matter how many times this happens, inevitably stupid...uneducated...lazy...naive (pick one) voters continue to fall for the snake oil sales pitch every time.
I voted against the Vestar TAX incentive, the RTA TAX increase plan, AND the recent proposition to raise more TAX money for schools.
Excerpted from a memo to the RTA Board:
Sunday’s article followed a fairly lengthy set of interviews conducted by the Star Reporters last week. Unfortunately, there are a number of inaccurate statements/conclusions made in the article as well as critical omissions of facts. The most important issue is that the RTA is not in crisis mode. The reporters are using dated or incorrect information to reach their conclusions.
Roadways: As background information, URS Consultants was engaged in 2005 to prepare estimates for roadway projects in the RTA Plan. These estimates were presented to the Technical Management Committee (11 public, 11 private sector representatives) who reduced the estimate because of excessive soft costs. These latter estimates were subsequently approved by the RTA Citizens’ Committee and RTA Board and presented to the voters. Eleven of the most recent roadway projects have come in dramatically (17-55%) less than the jurisdictional engineers’ estimates yet this information, although given to the Star, was never reported.
Although we disagree with the basic assertion of the article, i.e. there will be a significant shortage of funding, it does verify and validate our desire to get a hold of project soft costs. Last month we launched a very deliberate review on a project by project basis to address this concern. We are in the process of framing specific policy recommendations that will enable the RTA to deal with the changed economic conditions we find ourselves in as well as limit the size of soft costs. In terms of RTA revenue, the U of A’s Marshall Vest did the original estimates of $2.1 Billion over twenty years; recently revised estimates are only slightly under that. Bonding has always been a part of the financial plan, and is not a last minute addition. The real challenge is the jurisdictions’ ability to provide required matching funds, particularly as we go into the heavy construction phase of 2011-2016, but one must also remember that this is a 20 year plan and there will be several more economic cycles both up and down.
Transit: Should the Transition of Sun Tran to the RTA occur we have prepared draft 5-year budgets which do not result in a funding gap. In fact, through a variety of means (grant opportunities, management efficiencies, etc.) we anticipate operating with a surplus. This information was shared with the Star Reporters but apparently was misinterpreted, or deliberately withheld. They did not share their “analysis” with us.
Although the transfer initiative is not specifically in the RTA Plan, certainly regionalizing transit is. The 2004 RTA legislation strongly suggests that we pursue management of transit with or without ultimate RTA Plan approval. Under ARS 48-5301 we are to “determine the exclusive public transportation system to be acquired and construct the means to finance the system and whether to operate the systems”.
Finally, the Star article was completely incorrect in stating that the RTA could use part of the $533 million in transit funds designated for expanded transit projects. No RTA Plan funds would be used if the transfer were to occur. No transit projects outlined in the voter approved plan would be jeopardized by the transfer.
Dave Joseph
RTA
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