Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that MATA did present its budget requests to the City Council in June last year.
A proposal by members of the Memphis City Council to slash the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s city funding in half in its upcoming budget would mean “pretty much ending public transit in Memphis,” John Lewis, interim CEO of MATA, told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism in an interview on Thursday.
“The implications would be dire,” Lewis said. “Right now, we are operating really on duct tape and shoestrings, just trying to keep service moving. … I couldn’t begin to imagine the levels of service cuts (if the cut is approved).”
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The council members who support the measure said the $15 million cut would be maintained in city reserves and potentially released once MATA produces a budget and the results of an ongoing financial audit. MATA shared its annual budget with the City Council on Wednesday, but the transit agency can’t control when the audit will be completed, Lewis said.
Council members Jerri Green and Philip Spinosa Jr. proposed cutting MATA’s funding to $15 million from the $30 million proposed by Memphis Mayor Paul Young at a city council budget meeting on May 21. Council members Michalyn Easter-Thomas and JB Smiley Jr. also signed on as sponsors.
“If MATA needs the other $15 million, we have it there, but we’re not gonna write blank checks anymore,” said Green, who is vice chair of the council’s transportation committee.
City Council members have continually expressed concern about MATA in light of multiple revelations of financial misconduct and secret route cuts under prior leadership. Young replaced the entire MATA board last year and recommended the installation of interim leadership through consulting agency TransPro, including Lewis, earlier this year.
The proposal is at odds with the wishes of MATA advocates and riders who say the transit agency needs more money, not less, to begin building a public transportation system robust enough to meet the needs of the working-class Memphians. MATA officials have previously said the agency needs at least $35 million for the coming fiscal year.
At the budget meeting, Young said the idea of holding back funding with the intent of later releasing it was “poor budgeting.” Lewis agreed, adding that the City Council’s requests of MATA are vague, with a “goal line (that) continues to change at every meeting.”
The resolution proposed by Green and Spinosa does not say what MATA must do to receive the other $15 million. That action would likely take another vote by City Council members, some of whom have expressed other ideas about how MATA should operate, such as switching to small vans and providing more detailed financial records.
The $15 million proposal is not final. Council members are scheduled to have a budget wrap-up session Tuesday, with full meetings on June 10 and June 24.
The forensic audit of MATA’s finances is being conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is contracted by the city. The contract ends in June, meaning the audit is likely to be completed and presented that month. The new fiscal year begins July 1.
“I don’t understand how you hold MATA accountable and act as if we are withholding something from the city that is not being conducted by MATA,” Lewis said. “I am dumbfounded by this ongoing request for information from us.”
Green said the requests are clear: For a budget and the audit. While MATA might not have total control over the audit, it can speed up the process by cooperating, she said, and Young is ultimately responsible for the audit.
As of 9 a.m. Monday, Green said she still had not seen MATA’s budget. A MATA board member told MLK50 it had been sent to council staff.
“I can’t have another news story of a CEO going to India, another CEO buying drinks at the Grizzlies suite and not have any insight to how we’ve been spending, what we owe, how we plan to get out of that hole,” Green said. “…A year’s time is enough time for you, whether it’s MATA or PricewaterhouseCoopers or the administration to get the information to us.”
Green also disputed the idea that public transit in Memphis would end if $15 million were held back. Currently, the city’s allocation to the agency is being released on a rolling basis after the agency provides receipts of expenditures. MATA also receives funding from the federal government and the state.
“We’ve asked for transparency in their budget and for a full financial audit; the goalposts have been (there) for over a year now,” Green said. “If they do not get $30 million on July 1, MATA will not end, it’s just blatantly false.”
While the city is currently disbursing its funding to MATA on a rolling basis, $30 million was included in the budget for the current fiscal year. The agency also often uses city funding to bankroll operations while waiting on federal and state dollars, which are often delivered later in the fiscal year.
While the measure appeared to have support among several council members, not all agreed.
Councilman Edmund Ford Sr., who chairs the council’s transportation committee, told MLK50 that MATA really needs about $45 million from the city and that the $15 million allocation is “not happening.”
While city agencies normally present to the City Council during budget season to make their requests, MATA, which is not technically a department of the city, has not been scheduled to do so this year. Last year, they presented in June.
MATA requested a meeting with the council during budget season, but received “no responses,” Lewis said. Ford Sr. told MLK50 he is working to ensure that MATA can present soon.
If the City Council ends up approving an allocation to MATA different than the $30 million proposed by Young, MATA’s board will have to pass an amended budget.
Receiving just $30 million from the city already will mean a tight year, Lewis told board members in their May 28 meeting. That allocation will mean:
- Maintaining current route frequency for fixed route buses at the levels of the secret route cuts made by prior MATA leadership
- Maintaining the existing MATAplus service for people with disabilities who are unable to use the fixed-route bus
- Ending Groove On-Demand, which serves Downtown, the medical district, South City and New Chicago
- Bringing back rubber-tired trolleys instead of the historic steel-wheeled trolley cars
- Offering a lower frequency of trolley service than before the shutdown
MATA Commissioner Anna McQuiston pointed out at the meeting that if MATA were to receive $38 million from the city, they could either increase service for fixed routes, MATAplus and the trolleys or make a dent in the agency’s outstanding debt. If they received $45 million from the city, they could “do all of those things.”
Lewis said he simply does not know how it would work for MATA to receive just $15 million in funding with a promise to possibly release the other half later.
“In November, when the $15 (million) runs out and we come back and they say, ‘Well you didn’t meet the conditions,’ well, we don’t know what the conditions are,” Lewis said. “So it just seems like we’re being set up to fail.”
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
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