As I read the report here of Mr. Rabhi’s comments, he implies that the capital-intensive projects have other funding sources, thus are of no import to the local dollars required. But these projects do always require local dollars. Broadly, most Federal grants require a 20% dollar match locally. (MDOT has sometimes supplied these matching dollars for some projects.) Further, there are expenses involved in planning and designing projects prior to obtaining Federal dollars, including the use of consultants (AATA has already spent considerable money on consultants for this process). The FTF report seems to say that these local dollars should not be expended.

AATA’s executive, Michael Ford, appears to sidestep these recommendations in his statement that is in the Board packet for this week.

“Capital intensive portions of the original program were removed
with the caveat that alternate sources of funding should be secured to support the service. However, the planning and development of the capital projects will continue, but will not be slated to utilize the new local funding source.”

Note that he excludes only the new millage or funding source, not AATA’s current funding. Thus, the budgetary assumptions that the FTF was relying on have shifted. The budgets provided by the consultants would have already factored in existing revenue and expected balance between local and Federal fund contributions. (They have a very complex model that was used to arrive at their figures.)

In other words, by continuing to plan for the capital-intensive projects, AATA is introducing a new budget gap and the 0.5 mill figure will not cover expenses in the overall picture.