Editor’s note: A photo caption in this story has been updated to reflect Erik Stevenson’s correct title. He is the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s chief administrative officer.
The new members of the Memphis Area Transit Authority board, who have already exercised their power by pausing route cuts and layoffs late last month, now find themselves in the same difficult position as the board they replaced: MATA doesn’t have enough money to get through the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2025.
At a board retreat covering everything from finance to route logistics, Hamish Davidson, interim chief financial officer, told the board that projected cash flow will dip into the negative by the spring.
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The retreat was held just a week after the new board voted to reverse route cuts, layoffs and fare increases approved by the previous iteration of the board. That board, scrapped by Memphis Mayor Paul Young following a scathing report criticizing the agency’s failure to provide basic services, had opted for cuts and layoffs to right-size the budget.
“This is our fault now, right?” joked board member Dana Pointer, chief executive officer for Preserver Partners.
Although the board members and staff gathered in the room laughed at Pointer’s remark, the point stands: The nine newly appointed board members are now tasked with not only balancing MATA’s budget but also fixing the long-troubled system, which has struggled with underfunding, a sprawling geographic area and aging buses. All of those things ultimately result in long wait times and buses sometimes failing to show up, making the system unreliable for working-class riders in a city where over 25,000 households do not have access to a vehicle.
The total board replacement doesn’t immediately address any of these problems. Transit advocates warn: The new board cannot fix MATA on its own, and its new members have a lot to learn.
“They’re gonna need the help of the mayor and the city council,” said Johnnie Mosley, founding chairman of Citizens For Better Service, whose goal is to improve bus service in Memphis. “First of all, they’re new, so they’re in the learning stage.”
Still, the board needs to operate independently, he said. The previous board was described in the TransPro report as “a rubber stamp to the whims of the MATA leadership team with little to no actual oversight of the agency.”
MATA’s day-to-day activities are managed by an executive team that includes Interim CEO Bacarra Mauldin, but the agency’s policies and budget are governed by the board. Mauldin also reports to the board.
“The goal is (for the board) to sit back and make their own decision, not just what the MATA administration wants,” Mosley said.
New board has lots of expertise, but much to learn
None of the nine new members have served on MATA’s board before, a unique situation for the agency. In the past, staggered terms meant institutional knowledge was retained even as new board members came on.
Because of the complete turnover, the board met for a retreat on Oct. 30 to learn about the scope of MATA’s service area (where just 55 buses cover an area of 280 square miles), state open meeting requirements and the limits of their power.
The new board is led by Emily Greer, owner of Greer Leadership Solutions. She quickly asserted her authority as chairperson during the retreat, leading discussions about the board’s meeting schedule and the formation of committees — smaller groups that the board will use to do more in-depth work.
Other members also began to set themselves apart as experts in particular areas:
Cynthia Bailey, co-chair of the Memphis Bus Riders Union and the board’s only daily bus rider, stressed the importance of serving MATA riders in all board decisions.
Jackson McNeil, transportation and mobility director at the nonprofit Innovate Memphis, raised the importance of MATA having a dedicated funding source, something the board will likely have to advocate for.
“Not only do we not have dedicated local funding, which makes us an outlier, we have much lower levels of operating funding coming from our local government than our peers,” McNeil said.
And Brian Marflak, vice president of global planning and engineering at FedEx Express, asked how MATA plans to pay off past balances and identified the need for $3 million more in cash in order to meet obligations during the second half of the fiscal year.
Much of the discussion revolved around finances, including how, with current projections, the agency’s operating dollars will dip into the negative by spring.
As he discussed finances, Davidson explained how previous administrators at MATA overspent because of pressure to grow the size of the agency without funds to match that growth.
“A lot of the problems in MATA are not new,” Davidson said. “A lot of the problems have been around for a long period of time … and have grown and grown.”
The board’s limited powers
The new board’s options for fixing MATA’s financial troubles are limited: the board cannot borrow money, levy taxes, issue bonds or sell, purchase or lease real estate without the approval of the Memphis City Council.
The board’s inability to raise new funds on its own will be a key issue as they seek to redevelop MATA. The root of MATA’s woes isn’t simply mismanagement but decades of underfunding, says the Better Transit for a Better Memphis coalition, which includes advocates from the Amalgamated Transit Union (which represents bus drivers), the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, Memphis Community Against Pollution and more.
“The conversation needs to shift from board appointments to the larger, systemic problem — Memphis is simply not investing enough in public transit,” they wrote in an emailed statement shortly after the board was replaced. “Without a real commitment to funding at the level of our peer cities, any changes at the board level are merely superficial.”
Leo Arnoult, a member of the coalition and a retired management and fundraising consultant, told MLK50 that Young’s complete replacement of the board clarified the mayor’s authority over MATA. The replacement also suggested that MATA should be a formal part of the city structure like the fire and police departments and sent a message “that this function is critical to the city of Memphis,” Arnoult said.
“It really comes down to a fresh new board with hopefully more political savvy, having the ability to join forces with the daily bus riders … to advocate first and foremost for the funding that’s so sorely missing,” Arnoult said.
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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