Posted Jun 9, 2015, 1:09 PM
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NYC/NJ/Miami-Dade
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Riverview Estates Fairway (PA)
Posts: 45,795
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Clock's ticking on half-funded capital plan, but MTA is slow to spend
Quote:
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Thomas Prendergast is predicting "deep trouble" if lawmakers in Albany neglect to come up a plan to fully fund the agency's $32 billion, five-year capital plan. But the agency often lags in its state-of-good-repair spending anyway, a budget watchdog is reporting.
The city's Independent Budget Office analyzed two decades of capital spending by the transportation authority and concluded that the MTA's spending plans serve less as specific timetables and more general frameworks for carrying out major projects. Case in point: At the end of 2014, the MTA had signed contracts to spend $18 billion of its $31.9 billion capital plan covering 2010 to 2014. (MTA supporters note that Albany has a history of funding the agency's capital plans in piecemeal fashion, which makes them more difficult and expensive to execute.)
The MTA spent even less than it contracted: 37% of the previous capital plan, less projects related to Superstorm Sandy. By the end of the 2000 to 2004 and the 2005 to 2009 plan periods, about 45% of each plan’s total funds had been spent.
Of the $4 billion the transportation authority spent on capital projects in 2014, about three-fourths was for projects in the 2010 to 2014 plan, 20% for projects in the 2005 to 2009 plan, and 4% for projects in the 2000 to 2004 plan. But there was even a small amount spent that dated back to the last 1990s plan.
Nonetheless, an MTA spokesman said the IBO report backed up the agency's call.
"Without an approved and fully-funded 2015 to 2019 capital program, the MTA will be forced to make difficult choices between key priorities such as buying new subway cars, rail cars and buses, replacing tracks and rebuilding switches, installing more countdown clocks and extending the Second Avenue Subway into East Harlem," the spokesman said. "We appreciate the IBO's efforts to explain why delaying this vital work will hurt New York."
Construction work and major purchases, like new subway cars built to order, are often delayed, but the IBO is not suggesting that fully funding the MTA's next capital plan should lack urgency. "If the transportation authority’s new capital plan continues to remain on hold for much longer, it could compromise the agency’s ability to continue its capital investments at a steady pace," the IBO said.
The MTA spokesman argued that the IBO's findings underscore the urgency of funding the current plan.
"The Independent Budget Office report highlights the crucial importance of fully funding the MTA's 2015 to 2019 capital program to renew, enhance and expand the mass transit network that makes New York possible," the spokesman said. "As the report notes, all recent capital programs have been approved after the plan period begins, and commitments and expenditures continue after the plan period ends."
Transit advocates are aghast by Albany's indifference to the MTA. On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who controls a plurality of appointments to the MTA's board and therefore the agency itself, spent much of his Monday giving television interviews about an upstate prison break, and later hosted a documentary screening about sexual assault on college campuses. He has penned op-eds for the city's daily papers on his education tax credit and rent regulation plans, but said little about how the MTA will find the $14 billion it is still seeking. Lawmakers are eager to get out of the state capital after a punishing six months punctuated by high-profile corruption arrests.
Mr. Prendergast traveled to Albany last week, but there was no immediate word on a deal to find money for the capital plan. Funding the MTA is politically problematic for legislators. A previous capital plan was funded in part by a new payroll tax, which Republicans used to bludgeon Democrats in state Senate campaigns. The issue helped the GOP regain control of the chamber and may have left legislators gunshy about raising revenue for the next capital plan.
The payroll tax, which originally was uniformly applied throughout the MTA's 12-county region, was later scaled back for small businesses and those on the periphery of the transit system. The MTA was made whole with an allocation from the state budget.
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http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article...-slow-to-spend
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