MARTA may get $25M in stimulus funds

MARTA won’t have to shut down one day a week if plans launched by regional officials Thursday succeed.

A committee of the Atlanta Regional Commission recommended that ARC use up to $25 million in stimulus funds to help MARTA pay for its operating expenses. The money had been intended for long-needed metro Atlanta transportation projects.

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MARTA General Manager Beverly Scott was in tears as she thanked the committee, which passed the measure by a unanimous voice vote.

“I can’t say deeply enough our appreciation on behalf of MARTA, but more importantly on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of people who use MARTA and the businesses that depend on them,” Scott said.

MARTA will still need to trim its budget, though with less-draconian cuts, Scott said Thursday. They likely will include furloughs, fare hikes and raising employee payments for health care, as well as ending service at midnight. Trains now run till 1 a.m. during the week and 12:30 a.m. on weekends.

Scott and others emphasized that the stimulus money was a temporary, one-time fix, and the same problem would be back on their doorstep next year.

MARTA depends on a sales tax levied in Fulton and DeKalb counties for more than half its revenues. As the economy contracted, so did that income, leaving MARTA with a $24 million shortfall for the next fiscal year, and a $40 million gap projected for the year after that.

An apparent solution was left hanging in the legislative session that adjourned last week. At the ARC meeting Thursday, committee members brimmed with anger, saying metro Atlanta cities and counties would have to sacrifice their stimulus projects because of the Legislature’s failure to act.

MARTA already has $65 million on hand, stuck in a capital reserve account. It’s enough money to have covered the deficits for both years. But under a state law that applies only to MARTA, the agency must spend half its tax revenues on capital expenses, not daily operations. A bill this session would have lifted that restriction. The legislation passed the Senate, but in the House, it became a political football.

Committee members were doubly frustrated because the Legislature also failed to pass a transportation funding bill, which they had hoped might address overall transportation budget shortfalls.

“Here an outlying county suffers because of action that’s taken in the Legislature — or not taken,” said Walton County Commission Chairman Kevin Little.

“I’m 100 percent for MARTA and what they do for the region,” Little said. “My deal is I just don’t want our state to say, ‘Look, ARC took care of it, they’ll take care of it from now on.’ “

The resolution must now go through other ARC committee votes, and may require the governor’s approval, because the money is from stimulus funds. Scott said she believed that putting the money in a preventive maintenance category would qualify the stimulus money for MARTA use.

ARC and MARTA officials said they had not completed a legal review of the proposal. Stimulus money is generally supposed to be used for shovel-ready projects, not operations.

A spokesman for Gov. Sonny Perdue said Perdue would consider the proposal, and also would continue looking for solutions that might help MARTA, while allowing the ARC counties to retain the stimulus projects.

The rescue with stimulus funds deeply concerned ARC committee members.

“We bailed the Legislature out of their inaction,” said Charlotte Nash, a committee member who was appointed by Perdue to the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. “I think this is going to make it very difficult to get legislation passed in the next session.”