MARTA freezes salaries, warns of ‘Draconian’ cutbacks

MARTA’s top administrator on Monday warned of steep fare hikes and drastic cuts in passenger services if the transit agency cannot find more revenue sources to make up for a projected $60 million revenue shortfall.

“We are talking about a Draconian — unbelievably Draconian — reduction in service,” said MARTA general manager Beverly Scott. “There is not enough stuff that one can touch where you can, in fact, wind up making up those kinds of sharp decreases.”

Scott’s remarks followed a MARTA board meeting during which the panel approved a series of proposals to alleviate the crisis.

The agency began its fiscal year in July expecting a $30 million shortfall. In September, the Georgia State Economic Forecasting Center projected that MARTA was facing an additional $30 million revenue shortfall by the end of the current fiscal year in July 2009, and a $634 million shortfall over the next decade.

“That was before the Lehman Brothers meltdown,” Scott said.

MARTA board members Monday gave Scott the authority to cut $11 million in spending.

Last June the board eliminated 180 positions that were mostly unfilled. On Monday, the board froze hiring for an additional 100 administrative positions. The board approved Scott’s proposal to suspend pay raises for supervisors, managers and administrative staff. Scott said she also will not take a pay raise.

The board also gave Scott the go-ahead to ask the Georgia Legislature to undo a law that requires the agency to set aside half of its sales tax revenue for construction and expansion projects.

Scott said transit agency will also ask state lawmakers to allow MARTA riders to eat and drink at rail stations so that the transit system can contract with food service vendors for a profit.

State Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta), who chairs the state Legislature’s MARTA oversight committee, said she didn’t object to the MARTA proposals.

“I think what they’re asking for is the best short-term answer for them,” said Chambers. “But it doesn’t address the years and years of ignoring transit infrastructure [by the MARTA board].”

Chambers has long criticized the board for being “more interested in real estate development than in laying track and getting people where they want to go.”

Chambers is pushing for the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority to take over MARTA.

Chambers’s committee is scheduled to meet with MARTA officials Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the state Capitol to talk about the transit agency’s budget problems.

Scott warned the transit agency cannot ask for federal assistance without demonstrating that the state is willing to make more of an investment in public transportation.

“We’re not here to dump on anyone or any organization,” Scott said. “The reality is we have significantly underinvested in [public transportation] in the past 15 to 20 years.”

Scott said MARTA riders should expect a fare increase next year, but if the agency doesn’t get an increase in funding either from the state government or other outside sources, “it will be the difference between a precipitous increase and a modest one.”

Passenger fares account for roughly 30 percent of MARTA’s revenue. While the transit enjoyed nearly an 11 percent jump in ridership in 2008, it accounted for only $3.8 million in additional revenue.