Those total expenses would be covered by the following breakdown of revenue estimates: federal funds ($4,276,104); state funds ($9,939,035); local funds ($12,088,861); fare revenue ($7,258,000); and other funds ($91,000).

The AATA’s current year’s budget – for FY 2013, which ends on Sept. 30 – calls for $32,700,181 in expenditures. So the currently estimated expenses for FY 2014 reflect an increase of about $950,000, or about 3%.

This brief was filed from the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library at 343 S. Fifth, where the AATA board holds its meetings. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

At right: Charles Griffith, chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board. On the left is board member David Nacht. (Photo by the writer.)

The AATA board ratified the 10-year agreement on agency fees in an accord that is separate from a 4.5-year agreement covering wages and benefits. The board approved both agreements at its Jan. 17 meeting. The agreement on agency fees takes advantage of the fact that the right-to-work law does not take effect until late March, and thus does not apply to agreements that are in place before then. It appears to be a strategy that employers statewide might use as a response to right-to-work, to the extent that they are willing to continue current agency fee arrangements. Agency fees are paid by non-union members based on the idea that they benefit from the union’s representation of their interests during collective bargaining.

The board’s vote on the two labor agreements was not unanimous. Eli Cooper dissented, based at least in part on the fact that the text of the two agreements was not available to all board members before they were asked to vote. David Nacht expressed support for Cooper’s point, but joined other board members in voting for the agreements.

Another vote that did not achieve unanimous support came on a resolution that expressed an intent to work with the board of the newly created southeast Michigan regional transportation authority (RTA) – which includes the counties of Washtenaw, Wayne, Macomb and Oakland, as well as the city of Detroit. The AATA board ultimately voted to table the resolution, with Jesse Bernstein and Anya Dale dissenting. Board members who were in favor of tabling felt that such a resolution was somewhat premature, pending the possible amendment of the RTA legislation, which passed late last year during the lame duck session of the state legislature.

The amendment desired by the AATA – which is supported by the Ann Arbor city council, the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, and the Michigan Public Transit Association – is for Washtenaw County to be excluded from the RTA at this time. AATA board discussion indicated that the window of opportunity for amending the legislation is likely to be the 90-day period for appointing RTA board members, which will close in mid-March.

In other business, the AATA board adopted a revised policy to be used in responding to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act. The board also adopted its categorical and capital grant program through fiscal 2017.

The treasurer’s report indicated a disparity between increasing ridership numbers and the amount of passenger fare revenue – a difference that is significant enough to warrant further inquiry.

Public commentary at the meeting featured a voice that was new to AATA board meetings but familiar as the film critic of the now defunct Ann Arbor News – Christopher Potter. Potter praised the quality of AATA’s service, but asked for weekend buses to run later than they do.

Labor Contract with TWU

The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority was asked to approve a four-and-a-half-year contract with the Transport Workers Union Local 171 (TWU). The contract resets the full wage for newly hired drivers after three years to $21.50 per hour. The wage for current drivers with at least three years of experience is $24.50 per hour. The contract calls for a $0.50 an hour increase per year, except in the third year of the contract when the increase is $0.75 per hour. [.pdf of wages, benefits, conditions contract][.pdf of agency fee agreement]

The contract, which removes all language that deals with agency shop fees and dues, runs through June 30, 2017. Removal of the language is related to right-to-work legislation passed by the Michigan state legislature in late 2012. [.pdf of enrolled House Bill 4003]

The board was asked to approve a separate agreement between the AATA and TWU that covers agency shop fees and dues – which runs for 10 years, through 2023. Because the right-to-work legislation was not enacted with immediate effect, contracts ratified before the effective date – which is 91 days after the legislative session ended – are not subject to the legislation. The continuation of agency fees is not allowed under contracts ratified after the legislation takes effect:

(3) Except as provided in subsection (4), an individual shall not be required as a condition of obtaining or continuing public employment to do any of the following:
(a) Refrain or resign from membership in, voluntary affiliation with, or voluntary financial support of a labor organization or bargaining representative.
(b) Become or remain a member of a labor organization or bargaining representative.
(c) Pay any dues, fees, assessments, or other charges or expenses of any kind or amount, or provide anything of value to a labor organization or bargaining representative.
(d) Pay to any charitable organization or third party any amount that is in lieu of, equivalent to, or any portion of dues, fees, assessments, or other charges or expenses required of members of or public employees represented by a labor organization or bargaining representative. 

Labor Contract: Board Deliberations

David Nacht described the agreement as having been made very amicably between senior staff, AATA legal counsel and the TWU leadership. Nacht indicated there was no board involvement in the negotiations.

Nacht then heaped praise on the work of AATA union employees, saying the AATA has an outstanding set of union professionals. In the 9.5 years he’s served on the board, they’ve done an above-and-beyond job, he said. It’s an honor that the AATA has another agreement with TWU. Nacht said the TWU leadership represents their people well, and concluded by saying he’s pleased that management and labor relations are so good.

Jesse Bernstein added his thanks to AATA staff and the union. He noted they’d worked thorough the holidays to get the agreement done – and that meant they gave up family and free time. He echoed Nacht’s sentiments on the state of the management-labor relationship and the high quality of service provided by union labor.

Eli Cooper observed that there was a one-page resolution to support the board’s action – but he was looking for more detail on the terms and conditions in the actual labor contract.

Nacht reminded Cooper that there’d been a conversation by the board about the terms and conditions at a closed session [apparently on Jan. 3, 2013, when the board also held a closed session to discuss pending litigation]. Nacht noted that discussion of labor negotiations is a reason that can justify a closed session under Michigan’s Open Meetings Act. That closed session had taken place before the contract was negotiated fully, he said. Nacht indicated that he had just then reviewed the text, and what he saw was consistent with the understanding he had after the closed session briefing.

Cooper said he appreciated that the text of the contract had been reviewed by at least one other board member. He asked if there was any necessity for the board to take action that night.

Michael Ford, the AATA’s CEO, observed that the union had ratified its side of the contract a week ago, and that in the ordinary course of business, the agreement would come to the board naturally that night.

Cooper persisted, asking if there was any legal compelling reason that the board needed to ratify the contract that night. Bernstein ventured that it was not a legal issue but rather a “commitment issue.” He told Cooper that if there were any specific questions Cooper had, he’d be happy to answer them. Bernstein indicated that he felt the board needed to say they are ready to vote to support the contract.

Nacht then expressed support for Cooper’s position, saying that he thought Cooper’s point was that for a major labor contract, a copy should be provided to all board members, before asking them to vote on it. Nacht concluded that Cooper’s point was well-taken.

Cooper then said that because he was not hearing there’s a legal requirement that the labor contract with TWU be approved by the board that night, he moved for postponement so that he could do his due diligence as a member of the body.

Outcome: Cooper’s motion to postpone the vote on the TWU labor contract died for lack of a seconding motion.

Board chair Charles Griffith asked that the rough financial implications of the contract could be reviewed so that all board members have that information – saying that’s the minimum of what’s required to satisfy the board’s fiduciary responsibilities.

Ed Robertson, AATA’s human resources manager, reviewed for the board some highlights of the 4.5-year contract, which runs through June 30, 2017.

Bus drivers would receive $24.50 per hour in the first year of the contract, and a $0.50 per hour raise each year, except in the third year, when it would be $0.75 per hour. New hires after Jan. 1, 2013 would have a pay scale that is $3 per hour less than drivers who are currently employed.

Part-time employees – those who are scheduled between 15 and 35 hours per week – will pay 30% of their monthly premium cost of the official medical plan offered by AATA The total allowable number of part-time employees, as a percentage of all active employees in the union, will be 20% under the new contract. Under the old contract that percentage was 15%.

For full-time employees, they’ll pay 10% of the premium cost of the official medical plan in the first year of the contract, 15% in the second year and 20% in the fourth year of the contract.

Robertson said that there’s a slight increase in sick time of 4 hours per year, and for the first time it will be possible for employees to convert sick time to the health care savings plan.

Also, drivers who begin their shifts at the Blake Transit Center receive $7 in travel pay to reimburse them for the reasonable traveling expenses of beginning or ending their shifts at the BTC (rather than the AATA headquarters). That’s an increase from $5 per trip.

AATA controller Phil Webb indicated that the new contract would not have a significant effect on the overall financial picture. The budget had included a $0.25 per hour raise, but it turned out to be $0.50 per hour. That works out to an additional $60,000-$80,000 when you include fringe benefits based on wages, Webb explained.

The increase in compensation for trips between BTC and AATA headquarters has about a $50,000 impact, Webb said – at $2 more for about 25,000 such trips.

In the health care plan, the prescription drug coverage – which goes from copays of $10 for generic and $20 for name brand drugs to a $10 for generic and $40 for name brand – will save about $60,000 a year, Webb said.

Webb also pointed out the increased contributions from employees to their health care premiums would save money, but the AATA had budgeted for a bargaining position to be a 20% contribution. He observed that “we didn’t quite get there this first year.” That would also have a small impact, he said.

David Nacht noted that in the final three years of the contract, the AATA is increasing its contribution to the unionized workers’ pensions from 8% to 9%. Webb calculated that increase as an impact of about $60,000-$70,000 per year.

Outcome: The board voted to approve the labor agreements over dissent from Eli Cooper.

Resolution on Regional Transit Authority (RTA)

By way of general background, the new southeast Michigan regional transit authority (RTA) was created in the lame duck state legislative session at the end of 2012. Its geographic region includes the city of Detroit and counties of Wayne, Macomb, Oakland and Washtenaw, and is intended to coordinate regional public transportation initiatives. The governing board will consist of two appointees from each county, one appointee from Detroit, and one non-voting member appointed by the governor. Washtenaw County’s appointments – Richard “Murph” Murphy and Liz Gerber – were made by Conan Smith, then-chair of the Washtenaw County board, just before his term expired at the end of 2012.

There was widespread support for the concept of the RTA in Washtenaw County, but the specific implementation that included Washtenaw County at the outset – instead of at some later point – was something that was generally opposed.

Ann Arbor city council action on Dec. 10, 2012 opposing Washtenaw County’s inclusion echoed the sentiments of a resolution approved by the Washtenaw County board. The Ypsilanti city council is expected to consider a similar resolution at its Feb. 5 meeting.

A resolution of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board, approved in February 2012, supported the concept of an RTA, but conditioned that support on the coordination of new funding so that existing levels of transportation services provided by the AATA are maintained.

The Michigan Public Transit Association was also opposed to the inclusion of Washtenaw County in the RTA. In an email responding to a query from The Chronicle, MPTA executive director Clark Harder wrote:

We supported the position of the AATA and Washtenaw County that they did not wish to be included in the RTA. We advocated this position to the Governor’s staff and initially they told us that they had no problem with AATA not being included. Later, as the legislation was in the final stages of going through the House, they backpedaled on that and informed us that AATA had to be part of the regional authority. Our position remained in support of the wishes of the local agency and the Washtenaw County and Ann Arbor city position.

And Michael Ford’s written report to the board details some of the efforts made by the AATA as the legislation was being moved through the legislature:

I met with former State Representative Mark Ouimet to propose an amendment to remove Washtenaw County from the RTA prior to the Senate vote. We also worked with the Michigan Public Transit Association, the Midwest Strategy Group and legal counsel on an impact analysis detailing the complexities of operation within a new authority. Despite our best efforts, the amendment was not introduced.

RTA: Urban Core

It’s not clear what the impact might be of the regional transit authority on existing efforts inside Washtenaw County to expand and increase transit services. Those efforts – which involved setting up a countywide Act 196 transit authority last year – were not tied to the RTA.

By way of background, when the Ann Arbor city council voted to opt out of the newly incorporated Act 196 authority late last year – effectively bringing to a close that particular approach to expanded transit services in Washtenaw County – direction was given to continue discussion with several communities immediately adjacent to Ann Arbor. The AATA has engaged in talks with communities about a new transit authority with possible members to include the cities of Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Saline, as well as the townships of Pittsfield and Ypsilanti. Involvement with the townships of Superior and Ann Arbor is also a possibility.

During his oral report to the board on Jan. 17, CEO Michael Ford said that since mid-November the AATA had been working under the direction of the Ann Arbor city council’s resolution [passed on Nov. 8, 2012] and focused on planning expanded services in the “urban core communities.” That had included meetings with elected representatives of those communities, Ford said. AATA is in the process of scheduling meetings with Ann Arbor city council representatives.

The AATA’s role has changed, Ford said, in this new effort and “this new reality.” The AATA’s role had changed from taking the lead to providing more conceptual help and support for elected officials. But the AATA is committed to “linking arms” with urban core partners, Ford said. “It’s essential that the elected officials lead the process. It’s really important that these elected officials determine what their needs are for their communities, what level of service and funding they ultimately want to see happen.” Ford said that the discussions with the urban core communities centered around the 5-year service plan that was developed in conjunction with the transit master plan, to determine its relevance.

RTA: CEO’s Report

The topic of the RTA came up during CEO Michael Ford’s oral report to the board. He noted that the legislation was now law, having been signed by Gov. Rick Snyder on Dec. 19, 2012. Washtenaw County has been included in the RTA area, he noted.

He’d meet with elected officials up until the day before the Michigan Senate vote on the bill. He’d worked with the Michigan Public Transit Association, the Midwest Strategy Group and the AATA’s legal counsel to understand the complexities of operating within the new RTA.

More recently, after the legislation was passed, he’d worked with Eli Cooper and mayor John Hieftje to document AATA’s concerns about being in the RTA. [Cooper, an AATA board member, is also transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor.] Last week, Cooper, Hieftje, and AATA board chair Charles Griffith had met with representatives of the governor’s office to outline the AATA’s concerns. Obviously, Ford said, additional legislation would be required if Washtenaw County were to be removed from the RTA.

In that context, Ford said, the AATA is taking the necessary steps to prepare for the RTA in Washtenaw County. That includes preparing educational materials for the RTA appointees and plans to meet with them formally very soon. Liz Gerber, one of the appointees and a University of Michigan professor of public policy, had stopped by and introduced herself in the previous week. Ford had also met with officials from SMART (the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation) in an effort to be proactive with other RTA partners. A meeting with the Detroit Dept. of Transportation (DDOT) will also be scheduled.

Eli Cooper responded to Ford’s remarks about the talks with representative of urban core communities. He wondered if those talks had included discussion of the RTA. Ford indicated that had happened only on an educational level. Cooper asked if other counties, besides Washtenaw, had made appointments to the RTA board. Ford indicated that he thought there could be announcement of other appointments on Friday, Jan. 18. And AATA staffer Bill De Groot added that Gov. Snyder had appointed the ex officio non-voting member from the governor’s office. [Snyder's appointment is Paul Hillegonds, senior vice president of corporate affairs at DTE Energy, who will chair the RTA.]

RTA: Amending the Agenda

At the start of the meeting, Jesse Bernstein reported that he and Roger Kerson had put together the resolution on the RTA. Board chair Charles Griffith asked Bernstein if he wanted to add it to the agenda – and Bernstein indicated he did. Griffith ventured that a vote might be needed on that, and called for board members to indicate their support for adding it to the agenda by raising their right hands.

Outcome on adding RTA resolution to the agenda: The board voted to add the RTA resolution to the agenda over dissent from Eli Cooper.

RTA: Text of the Resolution

Jesse Bernstein read aloud the text of the resolution, which The Chronicle transcribed as follows:

In order to serve our region and provide service, and in the interest of regional connections and the stability of our operation, we offer this resolution to cooperate with the regional transit authority.

Whereas the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority provides transit service in the city of Ann Arbor and neighboring communities in Washtenaw County, is well-managed and fiscally sound and is known for exemplary performance, has an excellent track record of securing Federal Transit Administration assistance and working relationship with federal officials, and;

Whereas AATA has a significant interest to create regional connections and to ensure stability of operations, and;

Whereas the Michigan legislature passed SB 909 creating a regional transit authority in southeast Michigan, which includes Washtenaw County and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, and;

Whereas the Ann Arbor city council passed resolution 12-1404 resolving that AATA is encouraged to continue to discuss regional transportation options among Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Township, Ann Arbor Township, Pittsfield Township and Scio Township, leading to a better understanding and process for improving local transit options, and;

Whereas the Ann Arbor city council passed resolution 12-1588, which outlined serious concerns regarding the inclusion of Washtenaw County and the AATA in the RTA, and;

Whereas the AATA has particular concerns in that the plan to be adopted by the RTA board does not include Washtenaw County, that the legislation requires an unreasonably high bar for rail projects, that there is an option but no assurance that the AATA be named the designated recipient for federal grants, and that the AATA is not assured of the direct receipt of Michigan Public Act 51 state operating assistance;

Therefore the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board resolves the following:

The AATA board requests that the RTA board to include the 30-year transit master plan (TMP) as the initial RTA plan for Washtenaw County.

The AATA board requests that the RTA board to give due consideration to rail projects on existing infrastructure when developing rapid transit corridors.

The AATA board requests that the RTA board enter into a memorandum of understanding to designate the AATA as the federal designated recipient this year and in perpetuity, and ensure that the AATA be the direct recipient of Michigan Public Act 51 state operating assistance.

The AATA board directs staff to meet and cooperate with the appointed RTA board members from Washtenaw County and RTA staff members to ensure stability of operations and create the most appropriate regional connections.

RTA: Board Deliberations

When the board came to the item on the agenda, a long pause ensued after Jesse Bernstein moved it. It threatened to die for lack of a second. But Sue Gott finally seconded it, saying she thought the board should at least talk about it.

Bernstein indicated that the topic had come up during the performance monitoring and external relations (PMER) committee meeting. The PMER committee decided that it would be good for the AATA to take a position of where it stood on the RTA, Bernstein said. Over the last year there’s been a lot of discussion about transit policy in the county and in the city. Often, the AATA has not been a part of it, he contended.

Bernstein felt the resolution would express the AATA’s concerns. Right now, he said, we’re dealing with a law that’s on the books. If the law is changed, the board could re-do its resolution. But right now, the RTA is what it is, and he did not think that the resolution could in any way undermine the AATA’s future involvement or non-involvement with the RTA. He and Roger Kerson had worked on it, Bernstein said, with some help from Sarah Pressprich Gryniewicz, AATA’s community outreach coordinator. Bernstein said the idea was to make a statement that says: If the RTA is going to be there, the AATA is going to cooperate with it, while recognizing the city of Ann Arbor’s concerns.

David Nacht, responding to the fact that the resolution had been moved out of the PMER committee, noted that he had not attended that PMER meeting. He’d supported amending the agenda so the board could discuss the resolution, because he agreed with Sue Gott when she’d said it’s worthy of discussion. However, it’s premature to pass a resolution on the RTA, he felt. First of all, he said, Washtenaw County has just appointed two members of the RTA board. He felt it would be most supportive of the AATA’s relationship with the new RTA entity to have consultations with the two appointees prior to passing any resolution. [Nacht had been one of five finalists interviewed to be Washtenaw County's appointee to the RTA board, and was the interview panel's consensus choice to be one of the two appointees. However, he was ultimately not appointed by Conan Smith, the county board's chair at the time.]

Even though the resolution talks about engaging the RTA board, it also gives the RTA board specific direction. And he believed that before passing a resolution giving them direction, the AATA board should have consultations with them.

Nacht also wanted the opinion of AATA’s legal counsel on the question of whether it would be lawful under the terms of the new RTA legislation to have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) that would allow the AATA to be the federal designated recipient. His preliminary understanding was that as a matter of state law, it’s not going to work that way – the AATA could have an MOU with the RTA, but the law is still the law. So Nacht wanted AATA legal counsel to tell the board what’s lawful and what’s not.

But most importantly, Nacht said, it’s just early. He thought everyone knew what the city’s position is and the AATA also had passed a resolution before the law was passed expressing similar concerns. So the AATA board is already on record as having some concerns. But now “we have this brand new law and we have this brand new entity and I just think we should slow down and have consultations and listen before we speak,” Nacht said. He would be willing to table the resolution but wasn’t inclined to do so – because under Robert’s Rules, such a motion isn’t subject to debate before voting on it. He said he didn’t want an up or down vote on the resolution, but rather just wanted to put it off.

Bernstein responded by saying that his understanding was that there’s no formal relationship between the Washtenaw County appointees to the RTA and the AATA. They were appointed by the chair of the county board of commissioners, he noted. Michael Ford, CEO of the AATA, had been involved in the review, but the AATA board was not, Bernstein pointed out. [Ford had served on an interview panel to select the RTA appointees from Washtenaw County, though that panel's function was only to give input, not make a formal recommendation.]

The resolution says AATA wants to work with the RTA, Bernstein noted. The AATA board is responsible for a budget of around $30 million for an organization that has around 200 employees and a whole bunch of buses, he said. So it’s OK for the AATA to state a position that the AATA wants to be protected.

Responding to Nacht’s concern about what might be lawful or not to put into an MOU, Bernstein said Dennis Schornack – the governor’s special advisor on matters that include transportation – had repeatedly said that such an MOU was an option. “It’s not something we pulled out of the air,” Bernstein said. Now that the bill is passed and it’s law, and there’s a possibility of amending the law, he and Kerson felt the AATA board should make that statement – which he didn’t think puts anybody “against the wall.” The statement had to come from the AATA board, he said, because “the county has a stake and the city has a stake, and all the other governments have a stake, but we run the buses, and I think we should be able to say what we think should happen.”

Sue Gott indicated that she shared some of Nacht’s sentiments. She appreciated that the resolution was in front of the board because it’s an important topic to discuss. But she felt it was important to keep listening, so she was not prepared to vote it up or down and would support tabling it.

Eli Cooper told his board colleagues that “premature” is the one word he’d written in his notepad – shortly after he’d received a copy of the resolution at the start of the meeting. It’s why he’d objected to amending the agenda. He felt it’s important that the AATA understand that there’s a law – and that unless that law changes, there will be an RTA. He and many others who have been engaged in the conversations about the RTA have always been supportive of the concept of an RTA. But the devil is always in the details, he said. It’s absolutely premature at this time, when the AATA’s host and sponsoring municipality is formally on record asking for adjustments to the law that would allow Washtenaw County to be excluded.

Until such time that it’s deemed that “this is done,” and there’s no longer a policy discussion about the appropriateness of the RTA, Cooper didn’t think the board should pass such a resolution. Without going into the reasons that the Ann Arbor city council has taken the position that it has, there are sound reasons the council has taken that position, he said. There’s an obligation to listen carefully to the concerns of the city council. As long as there’s an opportunity to amend the law, taking a little pause to let the processes outside the RTA itself to run their course would allow the AATA eventually to create a resolution that is appropriate. So Cooper said he’d be pleased to support tabling.

Anya Dale asked if there was a sense of timing for seeking adjustment on the RTA legislation. Cooper ventured that prognosticating on politics is like prognosticating on who’s going to be in the Super Bowl. But Cooper felt there’s a certain “ripeness” to the discussion that’s ongoing – with the legislative officers who represent the county, the city and the state of Michigan – through the governor’s office. And Cooper felt there’s still an opportunity for an amendment. Ultimately, however, the legislature will vote on it or not, and Gov. Snyder will sign it or not. But there’s a clear public record of concern about the law that’s been passed, Cooper said, and it’s not yet time to say the AATA is just going to jump in – in his view.

Charles Griffith had also attended the meeting that CEO Michael Ford had reported on, attended by Cooper and representatives of the governor’s office. And Griffith indicated that the window of opportunity for amending the legislation was probably between now and the time the board is officially seated – which is within the first 90 days of the bill’s enactment. After that it would be much tougher, even though it would be legal to do, he said.

Griffith appreciated the spirit of the resolution and thought it reflected AATA’s actions to date. Introductions have been made with the two RTA appointees for Washtenaw and plans have been made to have consultations. And meetings are taking place between AATA and the other transit agencies in the RTA area. So he felt that the AATA’s actions reflect the spirit of the resolution. But he was not sure the resolution was needed in the short term.

Bernstein responded that it’s been clear since Snyder was elected that transit was part of his plan. Bernstein had attended meetings as president of the Ann Arbor Area chamber of commerce – he’d attended some of those early meetings to talk about what might happen. About a year ago, when the RTA was first proposed, the AATA was concerned and had spoken to as many people as they could to make sure that the AATA was not part of it in a way that could harm the AATA.

Bernstein contended that the Washtenaw County board took one position and the Ann Arbor city council took a different position. He said he was not sure what the county’s position is. He was not afraid to say as an AATA board member: This is what we’re going to do now. He felt that the resolution recognized all the issues that had been raised. He didn’t see the resolution as a problem. But he allowed that when he was done talking, there would be a motion to table, and that will pass and they would move on.

Cooper appreciated Bernstein’s point about potential confusion about where most of the county stood on the RTA issue, but he pointed out there’s a duly adopted resolution by both the county board and the city council that indicate a preference not to be part of the RTA, as is contemplated by the legislation. Cooper allowed there may be a difference of opinion across the county about the AATA’s countywide initiative, but on the RTA issue, the county board and the Ann Arbor city council are aligned, he said.

Looking around the table, Cooper felt it would perhaps be best if he made the motion to table – until the next meeting. Nacht ventured that it should simply be tabled with no time frame.

Outcome: The board voted to table the resolution, with Anya Dale and Jesse Bernstein opposed.

RTA: Report from the Local Advisory Council

In his report from the AATA’s local advisory council, Clark Charnetski noted that the group had spent some time talking about the RTA and its effect on southeast Michigan. He noted that the RTA would also have a citizens advisory council similar to that of the AATA, SMART and DDOT. He looked forward to seeing how that materializes. A lot has been heard about Washtenaw County pulling out of the RTA, but he thought there’s a lot that can be gained from the RTA.

RTA: Public Comment

At the conclusion of the meeting, during time set aside for public comment, Carolyn Grawi – director of advocacy and education at the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living – wanted to remind the public of the ways to be involved with the RTA, through the RTA’s citizens advisory committee. As Washtenaw County residents, we need to make sure we’re represented well on that committee, she said. There’s a strong pool of people who were interested in applying to be appointed to the RTA board. [Grawi served on the interview panel for the five finalists seeking the Washtenaw County RTA appointments.] She felt that the RTA would, in fact, go forward by March. So she wanted to make sure that Washtenaw County’s voice is well represented – especially that of the disabled community and of seniors, which are called out specifically in the RTA legislation for membership on the citizens advisory council.

Revised FOIA Policy

The AATA board was asked to adopt a revised policy for responding to requests made under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act. [.pdf of revised FOIA policy] The new policy would replace the old one, which was approved on Feb. 16, 2004. [.pdf of old FOIA policy]

The old policy was brief (one-page) and essentially outlined how much would be charged for copies, for labor to retrieve records, and how much would be charged as a deposit. The new policy is more detailed, and specifies how requests are to be logged and documented by the FOIA coordinator, a form that requesters can use to request records, and an internal form that is to be used by staff to calculate costs associated with fulfilling a request. AATA’s FOIA coordinator is deputy director of the AATA, Dawn Gabay.

The city of Ann Arbor’s administrative policy is somewhat more detailed than the AATA’s revised policy. [.pdf of city of Ann Arbor policy]

FOIA Policy: Board Deliberations

David Nacht asked if the AATA had received comments from the press or the AATA’s regular critics who might use the FOIA policy and procedures on their ability to get information from the AATA.

Michael Ford, CEO of the AATA, contended that the AATA had been very transparent about providing information, saying that the AATA tried to work with requesters who seek information. What had come up, he said, were requests that require an abundance of staff time that would require several weeks of work to deal with. So the AATA had needed to create a policy that’s more comprehensive. The old policy was outdated, Ford said, and now was an opportunity to clean up and enhance it, to make the policy a little bit more robust.

Sue Gott underscored Ford’s comments about transparency, saying it’s important to provide information to people when they request it. The planning and development committee had discussed putting as much information on the AATA’s website as possible, to minimize the need for people to make requests under the FOIA. That’s what staff has tried to do, she said, and there’s a continued commitment to make information available proactively to the extent that it doesn’t require extensive staff time, or divert staff time away from its core responsibility.

Eli Cooper asked for clarification of what’s new in the policy as compared to the old policy.

For AATA staff, Bill De Groot explained to Cooper that the pre-existing policy dealt mainly with the cost rationale. The new policy adds elements that deal with the review process, he said. The changes that have been suggested were reviewed by AATA legal counsel, De Groot said.

Cooper indicated that his understanding of the Michigan FOIA was that it allowed for works in progress and drafts that aren’t finalized to be withheld from production. By way of background the clause in the Michigan FOIA Cooper was citing allows for a public body to withhold records requested under the FOIA:

Communications and notes within a public body or between public bodies of an advisory nature to the extent that they cover other than purely factual materials and are preliminary to a final agency determination of policy or action. This exemption does not apply unless the public body shows that in the particular instance the public interest in encouraging frank communication between officials and employees of public bodies clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

So Cooper wanted to know if there’s a reason that’s not been mentioned explicitly in the policy. Cooper wondered if it might be in the interest of the AATA to include in the policy those kinds of materials that are subject to disclosure under the FOIA and those that aren’t.

David Nacht felt that the policy references the FOIA and that the policy shouldn’t necessarily identify what the AATA would or would not turn over, given the current state of the law – including legislative changes that might be made or legal cases that might change the case law. Instead, Nacht said, the AATA would comply with the law, whatever if it is at the time of a request, and if the FOIA doesn’t apply, the AATA would tell the requester that it doesn’t apply.

Gott asked that the board be kept informed about any “glitches” that might be encountered with the new policy. Charles Griffith felt that the pre-existing policy was not really much of a policy.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to adopt the new FOIA policy.

AATA Adopts 2013-17 Categorical Grant Program

The board was asked to adopt formally a capital and categorical grant program for the AATA. Having in place such a grant program – a set of allocations for specific categories of capital expenditures – is a requirement to be eligible for federal funding. It’s a plan for how $44 million would be spent over the next five years. [.pdf of grant program]

For example, this year the program includes 11 replacement buses, five buses for expanded service and 25 vans for the van pool program. Two of the new buses for expanded service are related to increased frequency of service on Route #5. Notable in the program is that except for $20,000 allocated in 2014, no funds are programmed for dedicated park-and-ride lots. Based on minutes from the Jan. 10, 2013 meeting of the board’s planning and development committee, the lack of funding for park-and-ride lots drew concern from AATA board member Eli Cooper, who is also the transportation program manager for the city of Ann Arbor.

Grant Program: Board Deliberations

Sue Gott introduced the resolution, as chair of the planning and development committee (PDC). She reported that the committee had spent three months going through it and had asked a number of questions. She indicated that if the full board wanted more detail, then AATA manager of service development Chris White could expand on the information. She indicated that the committee is comfortable with the program.

Gott thanked AATA staff for the time they devoted to answering questions from the committee.

Eli Cooper echoed the thanks to staff offered by Gott, saying that staff had done a wonderful job. He stressed that the program of grants was based on work the AATA had done historically – and that this program is at the core of concern about the regional transit authority (RTA). It’s based on expected revenues and funding sources, and it reflects the long-held commitment to maintenance of a sufficient bus fleet, he said. This kind of funding program is at grave risk, given the composition of the statute that flies by the letters RTA, he said.

Cooper said he hoped the AATA interest and intent is not upset by a higher-level body – a reference to the RTA. Jesse Bernstein indicated support for Cooper’s sentiments with an “Amen!”

David Nacht, noting that he’d sat on the PDC for a number of years, observed that the idea behind the capital and categorical grant program is to anticipate and to plan for projects that require capital dollars. The AATA anticipates federal funds that can be allocated, Nacht continued, as well as other funding sources that might be available. The AATA’s transit master plan (TMP) was predicated on becoming a countywide system, Nacht said. The AATA still has a TMP, but doesn’t have a funding source to go beyond the AATA, Nacht said. He noted that the AATA has already made modest expansions in service in anticipation of additional countywide funding. He ventured that some additional funding might come from the urban core expansion, but perhaps it would not.

Nacht indicated that the capital and categorical grant program likely was created with the TMP in mind. He said the AATA needs to be able to amend the document to reflect actual operational requirements. In the past, the AATA could move things around “from this box to that box.” Nacht wanted confirmation that the AATA would still have this kind of flexibility. Chris White, AATA’s manager of service development, replied that the capital and categorical grant program did not incorporate a countywide expansion of service – that’s been removed, he said. White noted that the new Blake Transit Center, which is now under construction, is included in the plan.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the capital and categorical grant program.

Communications, Committees, CEO, Commentary

At its Jan. 17 meeting, the board entertained various communications, including its usual reports from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, the planning and development committee, as well as from CEO Michael Ford. The board also heard commentary from the public. Here are some highlights.

Comm/Comm: Ridership

As part of his report to the board, CEO Michael Ford provided positive news on ridership generally. He noted that the AirRide service – which runs hourly between downtown Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit airport – had 1,920 passengers for the week of Dec. 16. The service has been averaging around 1,000 passengers a week. The ridership has been strong enough on AirRide that under terms of the AATA’s contract with Michigan Flyer, no payment was owed for October, November or December, and January looked promising as well, Ford said.

The first quarter of the fiscal year – which starts in October for the AATA – had shown record productivity, Ford said, with 34.6 passenger per service hour. That translated into 1.7 million rides, which is also the highest of any quarter in AATA history, Ford said.

Comm/Comm: Fare Revenue?

Board treasurer David Nacht pointed out that despite the very strong ridership numbers, this was not matched by a corresponding increase in passenger fare revenue. Nacht reported that in his capacity as treasurer, he’d met with AATA controller Phil Webb, and asked Webb to come up with a prediction on the budget, to come up with potential budget cuts and to present that to the board’s governance committee. That’s because the board is not in a position this year to just swallow significant declines in revenue.

CEO Michael Ford noted that he’d also talked to Webb about the issue, and that it’s important to understand why there’s a disparity between increased ridership and increased passenger fare revenue.

Commenting on the flattening of fare revenue, despite increased ridership, Jesse Bernstein offered that one theory is that the ridership gains are taking place among the rider groups that board AATA buses under fare agreements – for example, the getDowntown’s go!pass program or the University of Michigan’s M-Ride. He said that the AATA needed to go back to those partners and show them the data, and figure out how to make it work going forward.

[Notes to the December operating statement indicate that fares are under budget mainly for cash collections in the farebox. Compared to last year, fare revenues are 3.9% less than last year.] [.pdf of operating statement] [.pdf of notes on operating statement] [.pdf of treasurer's report]

Comm/Comm: Lost State Operating Assistance

As a part of the CEO’s report to the board, Michael Ford noted that the AATA continues to pursue $800,000 in state operating assistance that was lost for this budget year, as the result of a funding formula being applied that was sensitive to budget reductions by Detroit transit authorities. Ford said that in discussion with the governor’s office, the AATA had received an assurance that the money would be forthcoming. The Michigan Public Transit Association has been a champion for restoration of that funding, Ford said.

Comm/Comm: Blake Transit Center

As part of his report to the board, CEO Michael Ford gave an update on construction progress for the downtown Blake Transit Center. The canopy has been removed and the site is being prepared for construction. It would take 3-4 weeks to put the earth retention system in place, and then foundations and walls will be poured. Ford noted that the physical work is apparent, but he pointed out that behind the scenes a lot of work had been taking place dealing with utilities and contractors. The construction is still on course and is scheduled to be done in mid-September this year, Ford said.

Comm/Comm: AAPS

During his report to the board, CEO Michael Ford noted that a working group with the Ann Arbor Public Schools had completed its work. The group had recommended more AATA routes for students, with the addition of middle schools in the future.

Comm/Comm: New Website

As part of his report to the board, CEO Michael Ford mentioned that the AATA’s new website would be moving to a phase where people external to the AATA would be testing out functionality.

Comm/Comm: Connector

CEO Michael Ford gave an update on the connector study of preferred alternatives. [It's an effort that’s exploring alternatives for high-capacity transit in a corridor that swoops in a boomerang shape from the northeast part of Ann Arbor to the south. The corridor runs from US-23 and Plymouth southward along Plymouth to State Street and farther south to I-94. A feasibility study has already been completed. This alternatives analysis phase of the study will result in identifying a preferred mode (e.g., bus rapid transit, light rail, etc.) and the location of stations and stops.]

Ford reported that six public outreach sessions had been conducted so far – where people had been asked to indicate where they go most frequently and what their mode preference is. The website for the project is aaconnector.com.

Comm/Comm: Request for Extended Service

During his turn at public commentary, Christopher Potter told the board they might know who he is – as he worked for the Ann Arbor News for about 20 years in a writing capacity. [Potter was a film critic for The News.] About two and half years ago he’d given up driving, he said, because he was just tired of it. He decided he would rely on his own feet and the transit system. And he’d found the AATA to be a wonderful operation. The buses are almost always on time, they’re comfortable, and the drivers are courteous. Potter said he had few complaints, if any. But one thing that does bug him – and many others, he said – is the fact that on the weekend, the services drops off. After 6:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday there’s no service at all, he said. He wondered if there was any hope on the horizon for extended weekend service.

Sue Gott asked that AATA staff respond to Potter’s commentary at the next board meeting so that the rest of the board could hear the answer. David Nacht ventured that it would be helpful to know if Potter lives within the city limits, noting there are services available to those who live in the city that aren’t otherwise available.

Comm/Comm: Title 6 Compliance

During public commentary, Jim Mogensen wanted to acknowledge the Title 6 analysis that had been done on the Route #5 changes. He wanted to make sure that people were aware that the “urban core” transit plan would need to have a Title 6 review – and because it might involve reduction in service, it could be more complicated.

He also pointed out that there’s an April 2013 Federal Transit Administration deadline for a three-year plan that includes a public input process. He wanted to make sure that the AATA is aware of that and to make sure that happens. He didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle.

Comm/Comm: Countywide Expansion, Theft

During public commentary at the start of the meeting, Thomas Partridge introduced himself as an Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County resident. He called on the AATA board to declare its independence from all other government bodies in the county and to change its name and charter to become a transportation authority for the Washtenaw County Ride Authority.

At the concluding opportunity for public commentary, Partridge told the board that for over a decade he’d been an advocate for the most vulnerable. He called on the AATA to transform itself from a limited vision to a countywide transportation system. He also called on the board to stop the theft of property from disabled people and seniors who use the AATA. He contended that people had stolen his notes.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Jesse Bernstein, Eli Cooper, Sue Gott, Anya Dale.

Absent: Roger Kerson.

Next regular meeting: Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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Optimism was based on ridership data for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30 – which includes a record-setting 6,325,785 rides on the regular bus service, up 6.6% over the previous year, and 3.4% more than the previous record year of 2009.

AATA board member David Nacht expressed concern about the idea of adding back in project elements to the new Blake Transit Center, grounding his concern in part in the fact that he was wearing his “treasurer’s hat.” (Photos by the writer.)

Damping enthusiasm were the year-end budget numbers, which showed the AATA posting a deficit around $260,000 greater than the one it had budgeted for, leaving an excess of expenditures over revenues of $1,255,312. [.pdf of unaudited FY 2012 financials] That comes in the context of an approved budget for the just-begun current fiscal year, which includes an anticipated deficit of about $300,000. The board’s Oct. 18 deliberations revealed the fact that only by recalculating the amount in the AATA’s cash reserves did the organization currently have the required three-month operating reserve on hand.

In that financial context, board members were not inclined to add back in some elements that had recently been cut out of the new Blake Transit Center project, which would have brought the project budget to nearly $8.5 million. The construction contracts approved by the board at its meeting totaled a bit over $8 million, which was still dramatically larger than the smaller $3.5 million project the AATA had started with over three years ago. Instead of taking the less ambitious strategy, the AATA opted to locate the new, larger center on the opposite side of the same parcel where it currently stands. Construction on the two-story Fifth Avenue-facing center is now expected to start in late November or early December.

The board’s deliberations on the new transit center focused on whether to add back into the project some items that had been removed to bring the cost down from $8.5 to $8 million. Of the three items on the table – automatic ticketing kiosks, real-time bus arrival information displays, and LEED certification of the building – only the LEED certification was added back in, at a cost of $80,000.

At the Oct. 18 meeting, the board also got an update on the situation surrounding the incorporation of the new Act 196 board for The Washtenaw Ride. Michael Ford, AATA’s CEO, indicated that the AATA would be reimbursing Washtenaw County for the cost of renotifying jurisdictions in the county regarding their option not to participate in the new authority. He confirmed that AATA board members would not serve simultaneously on the current board and the board of the new authority, as previously expected. Ford indicated that AATA legal counsel believes that what the AATA has done to date already complies with the law, but the AATA is exercising extreme caution.

Several members of the future Act 196 board attended the meeting and had a voice at the table, but not a vote.

The board’s meeting concluded with a closed session lasting nearly two hours on pending litigation.

Budget

The fiscal year that just ended on Sept. 30, 2012 was one item discussed, as was follow-up from approval at the board’s previous meeting of the budget for fiscal year 2013, which began on Oct. 1. The state of the budget was general background for the discussion of the Blake Transit Center item, which was the one voting item on the board’s meeting agenda.

Budget: FY 2012

The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority had budgeted for a nearly $1 million deficit this year, but wound up with an excess of expenditures over revenues that was actually $260,000 more than that. The unaudited figures reported to the AATA board at its Oct. 18 meeting showed a deficit for the year of $1,255,312. [.pdf of unaudited FY 2012 financials]

Several reasons were given for the additional shortfall, which resulted in only $27,617,099 in actual revenues compared with the $29,418,995 that was budgeted. Those reasons included: $120,842 less in passenger revenue; $269,095 less in local transit tax revenue; $529,214 less in purchase-of-service revenue; and $927,149 less in federal funding. That was balanced somewhat by reduced expenses in some categories, including: about $500,000 less in compensation; $600,000 less in purchased services (including consulting); and $550,000 in savings due to the delayed launch of the service between downtown Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport.

Based on board discussion at the meeting, the AATA currently has just about exactly the three-month operating reserves on hand that it’s required to maintain by board policy.

Budget: Reserve Status

Reporting from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson noted there’d been shortfalls in the FY 2012 year-end numbers for various reasons. For the time being, those numbers put the AATA under the three-month’s worth of cash reserve level. According to Kerson, controller Phil Webb had identified additional money. And there’s an interpretation of what the three-month reserve actually means, Kerson said. Some one-time expenses – for example, for the connector study – are one-time expenses, and it’s not necessary to maintain a reserve against those types of expenses, he said.

Budget: FY 2013

As a follow-up from the previous regular meeting, AATA CEO Michael Ford noted that a worksheet had been provided in the board information packet detailing the budget changes that had been made to the current year’s budget, which began on Oct. 1. [.pdf of detail on budget changes] Those changes had been made shortly before the board voted on the final budget, which was different from one reviewed in committee. The changes were necessary due to a reduction in state operating assistance of around $800,000. It had still resulted a $300,000 planned deficit for FY 2013 instead of the essentially break-even budget that had initially been reviewed in committee. Ford noted that the worksheet included those items that had been considered for elimination but were kept in the budget – at the request of board member Sue Gott.

New Blake Transit Center

The board considered a resolution to approve construction contracts totaling $8,049,988 for a new downtown Ann Arbor transit center. The initiative began over three years ago with a much smaller budget of around $3.5 million.

Blake Transit Center: Background

The original concept was to build the new center on the same footprint as the existing Blake Transit Center.

This AATA-owned parcel, where Blake Transit Center is located, sits in the middle of the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth avenues on the west and east, and by Liberty and William streets on the north and south. (Image links to higher resolution view. Parcel map and aerial photo from Washtenaw County’s website: gisweb.ewashtenaw.org/website/mapwashtenaw/)

But the concept changed to one that will construct a larger building at a different location – still on the same parcel where it currently stands, between Fourth and Fifth avenues, but on the opposite side of the block from its current site.

Bus traffic to the new Fifth Avenue-facing center will enter from Fourth Avenue and exit onto Fifth, which is opposite from the current traffic flow. In order to square off the parcel for the new construction, a six-foot wide strip of land on the southwestern edge of the parcel was purchased by the AATA from the city of Ann Arbor for $90,000.

Construction bids came in totaling $8.5 million. But as of the board’s Jan. 19, 2012 meeting, the AATA had only identified about $7 million in funding for the project. At that meeting, the board authorized a $7 million project budget –  in the context of approving its capital and categorical grant program for 2012–2016. That amount was an increase from a $5.5 million project budget that been approved at the board’s Aug. 24, 2011 meeting, when it had revised the capital grant program. The initial project budget had been $3.5 million.

The increase in cost is described in a staff memo accompanying the board’s Oct. 18 resolution as due to a variety of factors, including changes in design based on community input and environmental analysis. The original $3.5 million design was for a one-story building on the current building’s footprint. The approved design is for a three-level structure (two above ground) with foundations that could support another two stories – at an additional cost of $100,000. Subjecting the project to the city’s regular site plan approval process – which is not a legal requirement – cost several hundred thousand dollars, according to the staff memo. The city’s planning commission reviewed the project on July 17, 2012 and the city council received the review as part of its Aug. 20 meeting written communications.

Aerial view of the Blake Transit Center site plan. The building will come in at around 12,000 square feet.

According to a memo to the board from AATA CEO Michael Ford, money identified by the AATA beyond the $7 million budget included $700,000 from a 2002 federal grant that apparently had been earmarked for a new Blake Transit Center. The gap between the $7.7 million and the $8.5 million total construction bid could have been covered through an additional $750,000 in federal formula funds (Section 5307) that are available this year.

The board’s performance monitoring and external relations committee was divided at its Oct. 16 meeting on the question of increasing the budget to the $8.5 million mark. The committee recommended revisions to the project to cover the gap only to the point of $8,049,988. [.pdf of constructions contracts for BTC] The committee was interested in consulting the board as a whole to contemplate the issue of possibly increasing the budget further.

A memo from Ford to the full board asked for consideration of nearly the full construction bid amount, so that key elements could be restored to the project: LEED Gold certification ($80,000); real-time bus arrival kiosk signage ($180,000); and ticket vending machines ($125,000). Those three items would have brought the total project cost to $8,424,988.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Preliminaries

Roger Kerson reported from the performance monitoring and external relations committee meeting and described a “spirited discussion” about the Blake Transit Center project. He noted that the proposed budget has increased quite a bit since the start. He characterized the increased scope of the project and the budget as coming from a deliberate process of gathering community input and addressing needs of riders and planning for the future.

AATA board members Sue Gott and Roger Kerson.

The result is that the original $3.5 million project is now an $8.5 million project. But there was only a bit more than $7 million budgeted for the project, he said. He and David Nacht had been concerned about that, he said. It might be possible to shift money out of federal capital funds. What the committee had asked staff to do was to reduce the project budget – reasoning that the best course was to leave it to the board’s “collective wisdom” as to which option to choose. The option of the reduced project was being presented for the board’s consideration, he said. But the items that were removed are specified, so the resolution can be discussed in that context.

He felt that committee members are aware of the hard work that has gone into the planning process, as well as the timelines that the AATA is up against to start construction. But the board also needs to be the best possible stewards of public funds. They’re state and federal funds, but it’s still taxpayer money, he said.

Some questions and commentary from Bill Lavery, Anya Dale and Michael Ford centered around the impact of using federal formula funds (Section 5307) to cover the gap in funding between the budgeted amount and the $8.5 million cost that had resulted from construction bids.

The programming of the Section 5307 federal funds through 2015 shows a balance of $419,281. A memo included in the board’s information packet and written by Chris White, AATA’s manager of service development, notes that allocating an additional $600,000 of Section 5307 federal funds – as required to bring the new Blake Transit Center budget to $8.5 million – would have an impact on other planned uses of the funds. [.pdf of White's memo and allocation of federal funds by year]

Ford indicated that the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) had also contacted the AATA indicating that there was additional money specifically for the Blake Transit Center. “It was some money they had sitting somewhere, and I hate to say it that way, but it was available to us for that purpose,” Ford said. Kerson noted that even the additional FTA money – which meant that the dedicated funds for the project rose from around $7 million to $7.7 million – did not get the budget to $8.5 million.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Justifying Cost

When the board reached the Blake Transit Center project on the agenda, Jesse Bernstein led off the deliberations. He characterized the PMER committee discussion about the costs as “lively.” He said that he, too, was concerned about the costs. The committee looks at the details behind the rationale, he said. He reviewed the extended time that had been taken to involve other partners in the area and customers. He pointed to the $90,000 purchase of land from the city of Ann Arbor, which increased the cost. Another reason the cost had increased, he said, was due to a contingency of $300,000 that had been added. That contingency had not been included in the original projection, he said. The committee felt that is was prudent to add that, which is typical with most construction projects. Another element that had increased the costs was city fees, he said – fees for building permits and water connections were assumed to be at a particular cost and they turned out to be much higher, he said.

So the committee had pressed staff to see what could be cut out, Bernstein said. Some back-and-forth between Bernstein and other board members and staff established that the three items left out of the final budget were: LEED Gold Certification ($80,000); real-time bus arrival kiosk signage; and ticket vending machines ($125,000).

AATA maintenance manager Terry Black, who is managing the Blake Transit Center project.

A $243,000 cost for heated sidewalks and driveways – to eliminate the need for snow and ice removal in the winter – was included in the lower budget figure. Terry Black, maintenance manager, confirmed that the AATA has spent up to $75,000 in a year for winter maintenance of the existing facility. Bernstein characterized the cost of the heated sidewalks and driveways as realizing a return on their investment in about three years.

David Nacht noted that he’d sat on the planning and development committee (PDC) during the last couple of years as the project was being considered. That committee had been comfortable with the doubling in cost from $3.5 million to $7 million – taking into account significant environmental concerns and community concerns about aesthetics.

Accommodating that input was appropriate to the AATA’s role in the Ann Arbor community as good partners with the city, the neighborhood associations, and the business community, he said. He also said that another significant increased cost in the building is that it has the future potential to be built higher than the currently planned two stories above ground – for example, by a private-sector developer, Nacht said. That developer could pay AATA or The Washtenaw Ride in some kind of public-private partnership and establish a future revenue stream. That would mean investing in this part of downtown, and possibly recouping some of that investment in the form of future revenue, he said.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Treasurer’s Concern

But Nacht was concerned about increasing the cost from $8 million to $8.5 million. The last time PDC looked at the project, the budget was $7 million, he noted. There’d been no contingency in the budget at that time, he said, and he was fine with adding $300,000 as a contingency, noting that he hoped it didn’t get spent.

And he was fine with increasing the budget from $7.3 million to $8 million – because that’s federal money earmarked for this project, and could be described as “use it or lose it.” The budget is mostly federal money that is specifically earmarked for the Blake Transit Center project, he said, that cannot be used for other purposes. The building was in need of renovations costing at least $1 million in any case, he said. But through the help of Congressman John Dingell and Senator Carl Levin, most of the funding had been obtained.

Nacht noted that the discussion at the last board meeting had included a fiscal challenge – because the state is cutting back its funding of the AATA. Nacht viewed the situation from the perspective of the board treasurer. He noted that the board had just heard during the discussion of the year-end budget figures that AATA is just at the three-month cash reserve level. The AATA is also in an expansionary phase, Nacht said. So far it’s been successful – and the expanded service is resulting in additional riders. That means the AATA is offering services that people are using. If you dig into the detail of the past year’s service, he said, NightRide and ARide services are being well-used and that had contributed to the current fiscal situation, because they are expensive to operate.

AATA board member David Nacht checked the nameplate as he arrived to make sure he was sitting in the right spot.

The AATA can’t just keep saying yes to expanded services without some sort of change in the fiscal direction. That wouldn’t be sustainable, Nacht said. So he didn’t care what cuts were needed to go from $8.5 million to $8 million, but “I don’t want to spend that half a million bucks,” he concluded. It’s a building – where people get on the bus and get off the bus, he noted. At the end of the day, buses cost $600,000, and fiscal challenges happen, and “at some point, we have to stop buying things,” Nacht said, in order to be fiscally prudent. He had nothing bad to say about any of the specific project elements, and figured there were many more that could be added, but he didn’t want to spend “a nickel more than 8 million bucks on it.”

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Big Enough?

Eli Cooper said he was reminded of a conversation of an even larger opportunity at that location, where the AATA was looking to expand to include the Fifth and William parcel – the site of the former YMCA building. [It's now owned by the city and used as a surface parking lot.] That project failed for a variety of reasons, Cooper said. The current proposal looks like it has a number of challenges, he said. The reinforcement of the foundations to allow for just two additional levels was a concern for Cooper. The matter-of-right development allowed by the D1 zoning for the area was not just the 400% floor-area-ratio (FAR) that the two additional stories would yield, but rather the higher-density 700%, Cooper observed.

A response from Nacht described the possibility of eventually combining the new BTC building with a future development on what is now a surface parking lot at Fifth and Division. [But Cooper's point – that the AATA was not thinking of the largest possible option allowed under city zoning – seemed to elude Nacht and other board members.] Cooper reiterated that he wanted to make sure that the AATA was maximizing the potential of the site.

Cooper also wanted to know how space in the new building was allocated: staff use compared to rider use.

Jesse Bernstein responded to Cooper by recalling how the public meetings had included questioning of the need for so many staff restrooms. The explanation is that drivers have little time to go to the bathroom between ending and starting their routes. Access to bathrooms can have an impact on on-time performance, he said. The second floor also includes a backup emergency dispatch center, and space for getDowntown program staff offices, Bernstein said.

Later in the meeting, when AATA manager of maintenance Terry Black was asked to the podium to explain the scope of the current building’s programming, he described how the getDowntown staff, who are employees of the AATA, were currently leasing space in downtown Ann Arbor. [That cost is borne by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.] The 12,000-square-foot new building would provide office space for getDowntown, Black said. The AATA headquarters facility at 2700 S. Industrial is maxed out in terms of office space, Black said. [On the most recent visit to that location by The Chronicle, a cubicle had been set up in a hallway area.]

Black also described the new building’s canopy, stormwater collection system from that canopy for use of graywater (toilet flushing) within the building, and the phased demolition of the existing building.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Needed Elements

Cooper ventured it’s not an issue of the operators’ needs. But in doubling the size of building, in the context of a tight budget time, he wondered about the inclusion of a secondary dispatch center contrasted with “significant elements for the benefit of our customers.” Real-time information is simply an expectation at a modern transit center, Cooper said. Now the board is being given a choice to leave it out. He wondered if the AATA was carpeting and outfitting a second level of the building at the expense of some elements that would make the AATA’s service more useful for its riders. He’d not been involved in the planning, he allowed, but when funds are low and there’s a need to make some tradeoffs, he was raising the question because he wanted to be comfortable as a board member that the board is making the right tradeoffs.

Nacht asked for Black’s assessment of the choices to be made. He agreed with Cooper about the inclusion of real-time information. But the decision of how to save the $0.5 million had been left up to the staff, he said.

Black essentially reviewed all the building elements. The building is entirely barrier-free and will meet ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] code, he said. At the conclusion of the meeting during public commentary,  Carolyn Grawi – Center for Independent Living director of advocacy and education – indicated she was happy that Black and Bernstein had mentioned the barrier-free design.

Black noted that the Federal Transit Administration requires the AATA to spend 1% on art. And some of the cost associated with the building stems from the choice of materials, he said. The choice was for limestone, instead of cast stone. Limestone would give a more durable long-lasting building, he said, but cost more. Drywall could have been specified for the bathrooms, instead of tile, but tile is more durable. The heated sidewalks and driveway cost more now, but they’re an effort to reduce maintenance costs, while ensuring safety for riders.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Contingency

Sue Gott asked about the contingency amount. Why wasn’t there a contingency originally and why is it set at the proposed percentage? Terry Black indicated that a contingency wasn’t something that had been talked about initially. The $300,000 contingency is “very tight,” he allowed. But he felt comfortable that everything had been scoped out and the numbers were good. There are unknowns in any construction project, he said, but he allowed that the contingency is a concern.

In connection with the contingency, Michael Ford ventured that the ticketing kiosk and real-time information components might be held back until the project is halfway constructed, and if it’s recognized at that point that the additional contingency is not needed, those elements could be re-included.

Charles Griffith was concerned that the proposal before the board was not to take the extra step to obtain LEED certification at the Gold level, given that the building had been designed to meet that standard. [LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a rating system for energy-efficient building practices.] Black told Griffith that the LEED-designed building would be built. But without the additional $80,000 for the certification process, there would not be a certificate. The $80,000 could be used on some other area.

Griffith ventured that seemed like a significant lost opportunity to go to the effort to design for that LEED standard, and not be able to show that the building had actually reached that level. He would not personally support taking that component out. [Griffith is energy and climate programs director at the Ecology Center, an Ann Arbor nonprofit.]

Gott received confirmation that eliminating the LEED certification in the budget would not result in the elimination of any design elements – but that it would mean that costs associated with the submittals for certification wouldn’t be incurred.

Roger Kerson ventured that part of the problem is that “the cake is pretty well baked.” He’d hate to take out real-time bus information. If the process was in an earlier stage, it might be possible to try to live without the training room on the second floor, for example. But changes to the square footage at this point mean a change in design and that’s not free, he said. What Black and the staff were trying to identify were those “standalone” elements that could be removed.

Gott wanted clarification of the cost increase due just to the more substantial footings that are designed to bear the load of potentially a four-story building. Black told her it’s about $100,000.

From left: Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber and AATA board chair Charles Griffith chat before the Oct. 18 AATA board meeting started.

Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber – who serves on the future Washtenaw Ride’s board – ventured that he was certainly no expert in construction, but the Hamilton Crossing project under construction in Ypsilanti is an $18 million project and had a 10% contingency. The amount the AATA has included for the Blake Transit Center is low compared to that, he said. [$300,000 on a $7.7 million project for total of $8 million is about 3.5%.]

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – LEED Certification

Griffith came back to the LEED gold certification. He felt the board could agree that the design was meant to achieve the LEED certification standard. But the AATA wouldn’t be able to state that in a public way. You’d have to be very careful about how you discussed it, if you don’t have the LEED certification. It’s highly improper to say you’ve achieved LEED certification if you haven’t, he said. You’d have to say, “Well, we built to potentially meet LEED.”

He asked Sue Gott, who’s the chief planner for the University of Michigan, if UM would ever go to the trouble to design a LEED-certified building and then not actually certify it. Gott’s answer: “We did that with North Quad. We utilized the funds for elements of the building rather than the cost of the LEED certification.” [North Quad is a new student dorm at the corner of South State and Huron.] Later in the meeting, Gott expressed some uncertainly about the level of the North Quad LEED design. Responding to a follow-up emailed query from The Chronicle, she wrote that the North Quad building would have met the basic certified level, if UM had pursued that certification. The other levels in order are silver, gold, and platinum.

Bernstein said he agreed with the concerns that had been expressed. Having been involved with the planning, there’d been several unexpected turns, he said, including the fact that no one ever figured that an easement might be granted by the federal building folks to provide a walkway on the northern side of the parcel, which was a precursor to thinking about moving the site of the new building.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – “Go for it”

Other than through the buses themselves, the most public statement the AATA makes is through the Blake Transit Center, Bernstein said.

From left: AATA CEO Michael Ford and board chair Charles Griffith.

Around 5,000 people a day people go through the BTC. He agreed with the concern about financing, however. Without wanting to seem “crass” about it, Bernstein said he thought the AATA ought to “go for it” and increase the budget to $8.5 million so that the three elements could be restored. To the public, the AATA could say that everything had been checked at every step of the way and it had been reviewed by committees and the public. Some people feel you shouldn’t spend anything on anything, Bernstein.

The AATA has to look at a commitment to improving the infrastructure for the future. It’s possible to stay in the current building and simply give all the money back to the feds, he said. He argued for not doing something partway, but rather getting as much out of the building as the AATA can. Constructing a building to last 10-15-20 years versus 20-30-40 makes a big difference, he said. He didn’t see a huge difference in $8.05 million and $8.5 million.

Anya Dale noted that her understanding was that a lot of the extra cost stemmed from incorporating public requests for what they wanted in a downtown transit center. Real-time information was an important request, she said. She agreed with Eli Cooper that providing real-time information was a key element for providing quality service.

Griffith returned to the LEED certification issue. He described it as a fairly intensive process of gathering data and doing analysis. It’s not just paperwork, he said.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Contingency Redux

David Nacht said he had no opinion about the particular point of the LEED certification. His concern was based on comments from Sue Gott and Paul Schreiber about the amount set aside in the project for contingency – that the amount might not be sufficient. He wanted to hear something about that. In a context where the organization is taking itself right up to the point of its required cash reserve level, the idea that the contingency for the project might not be sufficient would make him want to table the project.

Terry Black asked Matt Berg from Spence Brothers Construction to address the issue. Berg said he’d been working with Black for the last year. He was recommending a 5% contingency, based on the level of the design that’s been done. The drawings are done, and the project has been bid and scoped, he said. There’d been 80 bidders on 16 different construction packages. Contracts could be written now, he said. He felt that 5% should be sufficient.

Matt Berg, construction estimator with Spence Brothers Construction.

Schreiber’s higher number of 10% would be more typical if they were further behind in the design process and were still drawing. Nacht responded to Berg’s comments by saying, “Well, that was comforting!” Nacht continued by saying he had no particular opinion about the items identified for possible re-inclusion. However, he did have an opinion about dipping into funds beyond those that had been previously budgeted. As treasurer, he didn’t want to be in a position of having to come back and remind the board of this moment and saying, “Okay, we’re going to cut bus service now and fire staff now, because you wanted to build a building and make it a certain level building.”

Jesse Bernstein got confirmation from Black that the funding for the building won’t come out of operations funding. So the construction of the building wouldn’t result in reducing service or firing staff. Rather, it’s about buying buses or buying replacement parts possibly later than they otherwise would.

A somewhat inconclusive conversational thread ensued about the nature of the funds that were being tapped. Nacht noted that under federal transit law, preventive maintenance funds could be converted into operations funding to pay people and to buy fuel, he said. The AATA had recently received a budget shock and could receive additional shocks – for example, if the U.S. were to go to war with Iran next year, fuel prices could go through the roof, he said. Wearing his treasurer’s hat, it was his job to say these kinds of things.

Roger Kerson felt the Section 5307 funds were normally allocated for projects such as park-and-ride lots, not buses, which CEO Michael Ford seemed to confirm.

Eli Cooper was particularly sensitive to the process that has more than doubled in price – but that was the result of working with stakeholders. He’d been preparing to add an amendment to restore the three items to the budget, but had elected not to do that – out of respect for Nacht’s concern as the treasurer. It might be more appropriate to add those items back when the AATA had more confidence in its financial position, he said. There has to be a point in time where prudence takes over, he said. To hear that careful accounting has to be done in order to confirm that the cash reserve policy is being met, he said, means that it’s time to look at the project and ask the staff to perhaps find different additional sources of revenue to make sure that those features can be included that will ensure the new building is state-of-the-art.

Karen Lovejoy Roe expressed some support for the idea that Ford has suggested – that about halfway into the project the AATA would have a better idea of whether some of the additional items could be included under the contingency. She agreed with Schreiber that 5% seemed like a really low number. [Lovejoy Roe is Ypsilanti Township clerk and a member of the future Washtenaw Ride's board.]

Griffith indicated that he’d be open to an amendment along the lines of the items would be added in, if it appears there are sufficient resources as construction on the project progresses.

Bernstein didn’t feel such an amendment was necessary. If the staff comes back and says there’s extra money, the board can vote on that if it’s brought forward. If the motion is passed, the staff will still know that the board would like to see those items eventually included in the project. Black noted that the LEED certification has to begin with the start of the construction. The approach that Bernstein suggested might work for the real-time information display and the ticketing kiosk, however.

Blake Transit Center: Board Discussion – Adding LEED

Griffith said he wanted to prioritize that LEED item because it can’t be added after-the-fact. He just feels like it would be a real shame not to get the building certified for the high level it’s designed to achieve.

So that amendment was offered formally.

Cooper ventured that the $80,000 for LEED certification “buys us a certificate,” but wondered, “What else does it get us?”

Black indicated that the cost would include a year’s worth of testing and an outside contractor to verify all systems and to ensure that they’re working correctly. It includes monitoring during the construction process and after.

Nacht indicated that he just didn’t understand the significance of the certification, so he wanted Griffith to make a pitch, saying, “My off-the-cuff reaction is that 80 grand for piece of paper so that we can waive it around isn’t the best use of taxpayer dollars, when I’m not buying a ticket machine that a human being can use to get on a bus.”

Griffith indicated that obtaining LEED certification is part of the process of proving you’ve built the building to any standard at all. The AATA would be hard-pressed to say anything about the intent to met LEED standards. It’s meaningless to say anything about what your intention was without the certification, he said.

Nacht interjected with a question: If the whole point is to design an environmentally-sound building that’s good for the planet, and good for energy costs and good for the community, what is the added value of being able to say that we did it?

Griffith replied that the added value is that many people make environmental claims, but don’t back them up. And if you don’t go through the process, you can’t claim that it meets the standard. Drawing an analogy to other kinds of standards, AATA wouldn’t want to omit documentation for safety standards, he said.

Griffith quipped that it’s too bad the FTA does not have the same commitment to LEED certification as it does to public art.

Some conversation ensued about the graywater features and other environmental elements in the building that were a part of the LEED design.

Outcome on the amendment: The board approved the restoration of the LEED certification in the Blake Transit Center project budget, over dissent from Eli Cooper and David Nacht.

Outcome on the main motion: Without significant  further deliberation, the board unanimously approved the project budget for the new Blake Transit Center.

Incorporation of New Act 196 Authority

During his verbal report to the board, AATA CEO Michael Ford reviewed events of the last few weeks in connection with the AATA’s effort to expand the geographic area of its funding and governance. At a special meeting on Oct. 2, 2012, the board had authorized filing of the articles of incorporation for the new transit authority – under Act 196 of 1986. They were filed with the state through the Washtenaw County clerk on Oct. 3, Ford said. The AATA’s interpretation was that the 30-day opt-out period had started with the filing of the articles, and letters had been sent out to all jurisdictions in the county to that effect.

Several members of the future board of The Washtenaw Ride joined the AATA board at the table for the Oct. 18, 2012 AATA board meeting. They had a voice but not a vote. Starting at the near right and going clockwise around the table are: Charles Griffith (AATA), CEO Michael Ford, Jesse Bernstein (AATA), Eli Cooper (AATA), Karen Lovejoy Roe (TWR), Bill Mester (TWR), Paul Schreiber (TWR), David Philips (TWR), David Nacht (AATA), Sue Gott (AATA), Roger Kerson (AATA), Bill Lavery (TWR), and Anya Dale (AATA).

The city of Ann Arbor had recently “communicated a different interpretation of the 30-day opt-out period,” he said. The city suggested that the articles were not in effect until 30 days after the filing. So the opt-out period could not begin until around Nov. 3, Ford said. AATA legal counsel feels that AATA has complied with all laws related to the formation of a new transit authority, Ford continued, but out of an “abundance of caution,” additional time will be provided to make a decision to withdraw from the new transit authority. According to Ford, the city has given the go-ahead for a second notification to be sent out, this time by Washtenaw County, and the AATA will reimburse any costs associated with that. Ford said the AATA felt it was “on firm ground” with those issues. Clerks of all municipalities have been notified about the planned re-notification, and Ford said that the AATA “regret[s] any confusion the delay may have created.”

Besides the 30-day window for opting out, the AATA is also working with the city of Ann Arbor to establish representatives from Ann Arbor on the board of the new authority. “Contrary to our plans and understanding that the Act 55 board would automatically become a part of the Act 196 board, the city has chosen to proceed in this manner, citing possible violations of the incompatible offices statute,” Ford said.

So the city will appoint seven new board members, and Ford noted that process has begun with mayor John Hieftje’s nomination at the city council’s Oct. 15, 2012 meeting of two people to serve on the new board: Susan Baskett, who currently serves as a trustee on the Ann Arbor Public Schools board; and Tony Derezinski, who currently serves on the city council. [Derezinski will be leaving the council in mid-November, because he did not prevail in his August Democratic primary race. His last city council meeting will be Nov. 8. For more details and analysis, see previous Chronicle reporting: “Positions Open: New Transit Authority Board.”]

From left: Paul Schreiber, Michael Ford and David Philips.

Other nominations to the new board are expected to be forthcoming, Ford said. “While the new development has caused some delays, we are viewing this as an opportunity for a coordination process going forward so all parties can be comfortable in working together,” Ford concluded.

Later during the meeting, AATA board chair Charles Griffith said it was “a little bit of a surprise that our process for creating this  new authority got a little adjusted this past month. We started out with a bang with our action earlier this month to initiate the process for creating the new authority.” He said it was  not really a big concern if it takes a little longer, adding that he was not worried if some of the faces are new, when the new board is actually seated. He’s not worried that they won’t be friendly, he said. The AATA board would do everything it can to ensure a smooth transition.

Communications, Committees, CEO, Commentary

At its Oct. 18 meeting, the AATA board entertained various communications, including its usual reports from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, the planning and development committee, as well as from CEO Michael Ford. The board also heard commentary from the public. Here are some highlights.

Comm/Comm: Record Ridership

At the start of the meeting, saying he didn’t want it to be buried in a committee report, David Nacht stressed that the 2012 fiscal year had concluded with a record number of riders – well over 6 million, he said.

Ridership for FY 2012 (bars) compared against FY 2011 (trend line).

The AATA is continuing to attract new riders – and it was not the case that the increase could be attributed to uniformly high gas prices, he said. A lot of the increase is related to expansion of service on particular routes, he said. He summed up his comments by saying that the board had a lot to thank the staff for and a lot to be proud of.

During his oral report to the board, CEO Michael Ford also noted the 6.3 million rides on the fixed-route service, which was the largest number of rides since the inception of fixed-route service in 1979, he said. The number is almost 7% above last year. Routes that have increased more than 20% include Routes #4, #10, and #18. Doubling the frequency on Route #4 – between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti – has been beneficial to the community, Ford said. Commuter express bus service has also increased about 29% for the Chelsea-Ann Arbor service and about 54% for the Canton-Ann Arbor service. Ford noted that a total of about 25,000 people had ridden the AirRide service – between downtown Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport – since its inception in April 2012. [.pdf of year end performance data]

Comm/Comm: Committee Membership

Charles Griffith, who was elected chair of the board at the previous regular meeting on Sept 27, 2012, had said he wanted to hold off on setting committee membership until he’d had a chance to touch base with other board members.

Anya Dale.

At the Oct. 18 meeting, Griffith announced that Roger Kerson would take over Griffith’s chairmanship of the performance monitoring and external relations committee and outgoing board chair Jesse Bernstein would take a spot on that committee. The third member of that committee is David Nacht.

Anya Dale will continue to chair the planning and development committee. The other two members of that committee are Sue Gott and Eli Cooper.

Comm/Comm: City Council Action – Connector, Rail

Eli Cooper, who also serves as the city of Ann Arbor’s transportation program manager, reported that the city council had two transportation items on the agenda for its Oct. 15 meeting and both were approved. One was the environmental review and preliminary engineering study for an Ann Arbor rail station. The other was a study for a transportation connector between the northeast and southern part of the city. Cooper reported that the city is “all in” for those two projects as they’re currently understood.

Comm/Comm: Bus Shelter

Jim Mogensen addressed the issue of a bus shelter at Chidester Place in Ypsilanti, which he’d raised at the board’s previous board meeting. He said he’d received a useful response from AATA staff explaining why the change had been made from a 6×12 shelter to a 5×10 shelter.

By way of background, the response is described in the CEO’s written report to the board:

The old 6’x12’ shelter at Chidester had been in place for a long time. The building management installed a ramp several years ago to permit wheelchair users to get up onto the shelter pad. However, there was not enough room (only 3’) for a wheelchair user to get by the shelter to the bus stop. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires a 5’ clear path. The new shelter measures 5’x10’ and includes a location under the roof for a wheelchair user, which was not the case with the old shelter. While the daily boardings (21) are well below the threshold for placing a passenger shelter at the stop (50), we have maintained a shelter there because we recognize that Chidester Place is home to many seniors and people with disabilities.

In his Oct. 18 remarks, Mogensen noted there’d been an Option 1 considered, but no Option 2, for achieving the 5 -foot clear path. He suggested Option 2 could have been extending the concrete pad on the other side by two feet and keeping the larger shelter. Mogensen characterized it as a cultural point: by fixing the ADA issue, AATA fixed its [legal] problem, but that created a problem for the ridership.

During his oral report to the board, which came shortly after Mogensen’s comments at the meeting, Ford indicated that additional checking would be done based on Mogensen’s remarks.

Comm/Comm: New Website

Reporting from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson said that the new website being developed for the AATA is “really cool.” He described it as very sophisticated. The real-time information, which allows people to locate a bus and see how far away it is, adds a lot of value, he said. The vendor is in the final stages of the work, Kerson reported. Before final launch, some additional testing will be done with focus groups, with some final adjustments to be made as a result of that. When it goes public, he said, the website will have some “test miles on it.”

Comm/Comm: Purchase of Transportation

Jim Mogensen reiterated a comment he made at a previous meeting – that municipalities that have purchase-of-service agreements (POSAs) with the AATA are not actually purchasing transportation. The AATA gets revenue from the federal government and the state government, and from fares. The difference between the cost of providing that service and the revenue is the local match – so what communities with POSAs are paying for is the local match, he said.

Comm/Comm: Partridge

Thomas Partridge weighed in during public commentary calling for a commitment to affordable public transportation.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Jesse Bernstein, Eli Cooper, Sue Gott, Roger Kerson, Anya Dale.

Also attending as representatives of the future Act 196 board of The Washtenaw Ride were: Karen Lovejoy Roe, Bill Mester, Paul Schreiber, David Philips, and Bill Lavery.

Next regular meeting: Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date.]

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Charles Griffith looks at a budget spreadsheet during the Sept. 27, 2012 meeting of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board. (Photos by the writer.)

Compared to an earlier draft budget, the one approved by the board was diminished on the revenue side by $800,000 in less-than-expected state operating assistance. Subsequent reductions in expenses still resulted in the need to use $300,000 in reserves to cover the gap. The reduction in state operating assistance for the AATA is related to a dramatic budget decrease by a Detroit transit agency – the state’s formula for making its allocations is sensitive to that.

The meeting’s budget discussion overlapped with conversation about the new transit authority, which is likely to be incorporated next week on Oct. 3. That’s the day after the AATA board is scheduled to meet in a special session, when it’s expected to request formally that the Washtenaw County clerk file articles of incorporation with the state. The new transit authority is to be called The Washtenaw Ride. Before any assets could be transferred from the AATA to The Washtenaw Ride, voters would need to approve a funding mechanism, likely through a millage to be placed on the ballot as soon as May 2013.

AATA board members made a point to stress that the planned operating deficits for the year that’s now ending (about $1 million) and the upcoming year ($300,000) are not sustainable. Instead, those budgets reflect an early implementation of some expanded services – like increased frequency on Route #4 between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti – which the AATA would like to implement more permanently in the context of the broader governance and service area of a new transit authority. Some currently expanded services might need to be scaled back if the new authority winds up being dissolved at the end of 2014 – a possibility if voters do not authorize the necessary funding.

The incorporation of the new authority has statutory implications. Because the incorporation of a new transit authority will include by default all the jurisdictions in Washtenaw County, the filing of the articles opens a 30-day window for jurisdictions to opt out of participation. That can be accomplished through a vote by a jurisdiction’s governing body.

The possibility of several jurisdictions opting out prompted the introduction of a resolution at the Sept. 27 meeting that was not originally on the agenda. That resolution was meant to clarify that the AATA board is keen to allow all the constituencies to be represented on the new authority that have been represented for about a year on the as-yet-unincorporated board – up to the point when a millage is placed on the ballot. That is, the current AATA board members – who will also serve on the new board – do not intend that their first response to opt-outs would be to alter the new board’s composition.

The articles of incorporation for the new authority specify an initial board membership of 15 members in eight districts. Altering that membership would, by the articles of incorporation, require a 4/5 majority (12 votes). So the resolution floated at the Sept. 27 meeting was intended to give assurance that the seven AATA board members – as future members of the 15-member board – would not want to alter the composition of the new board until a decision is made about putting a transit millage on the ballot. At that point, a change likely would be made to avoid the possibility of “representation without taxation.”

Representatives of three of the seven non-Ann Arbor districts in the new authority attended the AATA’s Sept. 27 meeting and participated in the discussion: Karen Lovejoy Roe (Southeast District); Bill Lavery (South Middle District); and David Read (North Middle District). Lovejoy and Read reacted to the uncertainty that the resolution was meant to address by questioning the timing of the planned incorporation.

Another significant business item transacted at the meeting was the contingent approval of a contract with URS Corp. to continue studying a possible transportation connector between the northeast and south sides of Ann Arbor. The authorization of the contract is conditional on additional local funding – in the amount of $60,000. The $60,000 would be part of a total $300,000 local match for a $1.2 million federal grant. The Ann Arbor city council had voted initially to reject a request that it provide the $60,000, but then reconsidered and postponed the question until Oct. 15. In the meantime, the board of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority has indicated some willingness to make a contribution – $30,000 of the requested $60,000.

The AATA board’s Sept. 27 meeting marked Jesse Bernstein’s final meeting as chair. He’s led the board for the last two years. At the meeting, Bernstein alluded to the tradition of rotating the chairship of the board, a tradition he wanted to continue. The board elected Charles Griffith as chair.

FY 2013 Budget

On the board’s agenda was approval of the FY 2013 budget and work plan. The AATA’s fiscal year runs from October through September.

FY 2013 Budget: Background

The draft AATA budget provided on Sept. 12 to the Ann Arbor city council as a communication item for the council’s Sept. 17 meeting showed a surplus of $22,692 over the budgeted expenses of $33,344,048. The need for the AATA to use $300,000 of unrestricted net assets – to cover the difference between expenditures and revenues – was prompted by notification on Sept. 14 by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) that the formula determining the state’s operating assistance would reduce AATA’s assistance by $803,500.

The possibility of the reduction in funding was known previously. At the board’s Aug. 16, 2012 meeting, Charles Griffith had reported from the performance monitoring and external relations committee on the topic.

About half the reductions in expenses in the final budget, compared to the draft, were made in wage reductions – a total of $294,473. Percentage-wise, the budget for management wages was reduced by 2.79% compared to a 1.24% decrease in non-management wages. That reflects a wage freeze for non-union employees. According to CEO Michael Ford, no reduction in service was required in order to balance this year’s budget. [Google Spreadsheet compiled by The Chronicle showing contrast by category between draft and final budget.]

Last year, the AATA adopted a budget with a deficit of close to $1 million. At the time, AATA board members characterized the strategy as making investments in service expansion in advance of the transition of the AATA to a new authority incorporated under Act 196 of 1986. The AATA has called a special meeting of the board for Oct. 2, 2012 to make a formal request of Washtenaw County to file the articles of incorporation for the new authority under Act 196.

Based on the draft budget projections for the draft FY 2013 budget – which used the first nine months of actual expenses and revenues with seasonal adjustments – the AATA expected to finish FY 2012 with a much smaller deficit of $296,378. That’s about one-third of what was budgeted at the start of last year. But figures through the first 11 months of the year, included in the Sept. 27 board meeting information packet, show that the AATA has thus far incurred a deficit of $1,077,250.

The AATA’s fund balance policy requires it to maintain reserves equal to at least three months’ worth of operating expenses.

Also at its Sept. 27 meeting, the board was asked to approve its work plan for the upcoming year. Key goals include the implementation of the transit master plan (including new governance under Act 196 and securing voter-approved funding), negotiating a new labor contract, building a replacement for the Blake Transit Center in downtown Ann Arbor, and developing a new model for paratransit services.

The work plan also calls for continued cooperation with the Ann Arbor Public Schools to expand student transportation options.

FY 2013 Budget: The MDOT Formula

What AATA board members described as a “change” in MDOT’s formula appears not to be so much a change in the allocation formula as it is a case of the formula’s peculiar sensitivity to the financial situation in other transit authorities in the state.

In slightly more detail, which still glosses over much of the formula’s complexity, the amount of funding MDOT had available to allocate to transit agencies statewide this year was the same as last year – $166.6 million.

Transit agencies are divided into two groups based on population: (1) urban areas with populations over 100,000; and (2) urbanized areas with populations under 100,000 and non-urbanized areas. The first split of the $166.6 million was a proportionate allocation between those two groups. That proportion is based on the total of eligible expenses in each agency’s submitted operating budget.

Ann Arbor falls into the first of those groups – along with the transit authorities in cites like Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Detroit. This year, the FY 2013 budget for the Detroit Dept. of Transportation (DDOT) dropped from $159 million to $124 million – a reduction of $35 million. That meant a proportionate drop for DDOT’s group – to which Ann Arbor belongs.

Consequently, instead of last year’s $122.2 million allocation, the group that includes Ann Arbor received about $4 million less – $118.5 million.

In a phone interview with The Chronicle, Jean Ruestman – manager of the program administration section in MDOT’s office of passenger transportation – described that first split as the one that had the most impact on the AATA’s allocation of state operating assistance. That initial reduction – for the group of transit agencies to which the AATA belongs – was further amplified by another provision in the formula.

The formula provides a “floor” that guarantees a transit agency at least the amount of state operating assistance it received in 1997. Because of the drop in its budget, DDOT’s strictly proportionate share within its group this year would have been less than the 1997 “floor” – by $8 million. So the formula required that DDOT be made whole with respect to that floor. If the “floor” provision did not exist, that would have resulted in $8 million more for non-DDOT members of the group to split up. [.pdf of briefing memo on MDOT allocations]

FY 2013 Budget: Ford’s Report

Michael Ford, the AATA’s CEO, reviewed the timeline for the evolution of the budget. At the September planning and development committee meeting, a balanced budget had been reviewed with a small surplus. Later on that week, the AATA had received official notice from MDOT about the reduction in state funding of around $803,000. That possibility had been mentioned at the previous month’s committee and board meetings, he noted. The AATA had reached out to legislators and the MDOT staff to try to convince them to alter the formula. Ford characterized the MDOT’s actions as unexpected, given that the legislature had approved the same amount of operating money in the last several years. So the AATA had expected the state’s allocation to the AATA would be similar to what it had been in the last years.

However, Ford said, MDOT had acted in a way that had resulted in a significant reduction in funding to the AATA. The balanced budget presented to the board that evening reflected spending cuts, a wage freeze for AATA non-union employees, and the use of some federal funds now available for day-to-day operations. No reduction in service is planned, he stressed. The ability to use federal funds in this way, he said, was made possible through a recent transportation bill approved by the U.S. Congress – called Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st century (MAP-21).

Another key part of the plan to balance the budget in the face of the reduction in state operating assistance is the use of $300,000 of reserve funds – funds that are intended to be used to address unforeseen financial setbacks. AATA will continue to work with its peer transit authorities, Ford said, to lobby the legislature.

Legislation was introduced last week that could restore that funding. Ford said he would keep the board updated on the progress of those efforts. In the meantime, he was asking the board for their support of the balanced budget that night.

Later during board deliberations, Eli Cooper was keen to see the legislative effort maintained. Cooper appreciated the fact that the staff was shouldering the burden of the $800,000 in reduced funding. But he ventured that the AATA is not alone in Michigan, so he wondered what the AATA and the Michigan Public Transit Association are doing to coordinate to make sure that the state continues to be a good partner in providing transportation for all the citizens of the state.

Ford reiterated that legislation has been introduced in the last week. Lansing, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo and about 10 other urban systems are “in the soup” with the AATA with respect to the reduced funding. Cooper wanted those efforts to be redoubled to make sure that legislators understand the difficulty that it’s creating for transit organizations across the state.

FY 2013 Budget: Board Deliberations

Charles Griffith wanted to hear more details about how the budget had been balanced to respond to the reduction in state operating assistance.

AATA board members David Nacht and Sue Gott.

Ford described the staff as actively involved – having met at least three times to go through the budget with a fine-toothed comb. He characterized it as a team effort. Each department gave up something, he said. Some of it related to staffing, consulting, IT, or communications. It was a matter of looking through every department and asking them what they could give up to help balance the budget.

Ford described a phase of organizational analysis that would be put off, and noted that wages as well as bonuses had been affected. “That’s not always a great topic to talk about,” he said. Bus parts, electrical use, water use, postage – every nook and cranny of the budget had been examined to see what could be given up to “stem the tide” for right now, Ford said.

Nacht characterized the current phase of the organization as an “investment phase.” The AATA is taking federal dollars – not local Ann Arbor transit tax dollars – and using those to invest in some services that provide opportunities to demonstrate what can be accomplished in the direction of countywide service, he said. That works in the short term and in a fiscally sound manner, but it’s not a long-term sustainable approach, he allowed.

The long-term use of those federal dollars, Nacht said, will need to be allocated in other areas to maintain “our bread-and-butter operations for the taxpayers of Ann Arbor” and for the other jurisdictions with whom the AATA has purchase-of-service agreements (POSAs). He felt the staff had done an admirable job in dealing with the situation – which had not been a complete surprise, but was nonetheless a bit of a shock, he said – to maintain the investment in the countywide initiative, to honor the investment of the Ann Arbor taxpayers, and to keep the budget in a fiscally sound prudent manner.

Chris White, AATA manager of service development, offers some clarification. In the foreground is board member Sue Gott.

Asked to clarify some remarks made by Jesse Bernstein, Chris White, manager of service development at the AATA, stressed that the AATA is not deferring any capital replacement – and that the AATA’s capital replacement program is intact. The federal money that has been redirected for operating expenses would have gone to implementation of the transportation master plan, White said.

Nacht stressed that it’s important for the public to understand what will happen if the AATA does not receive additional funding to support countywide service. If that happens, the steps the AATA has taken to provide additional services outside of the Ann Arbor service area – steps that are moving in the direction of countywide service – might need to be curtailed. As an example, he gave the more frequent service now offered from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor along Washtenaw Avenue, which is not an inexpensive service, he said. But that service can be offered now, Nacht said, as an investment to demonstrate to the broader community that the AATA can readily handle that service and perform it admirably, and hopefully persuade a significant number of people to become riders.

But Nacht said without additional funding, the AATA is not in a position to sustain into the indefinite future the projected level of service that it’s going to be offering the public outside of Ann Arbor in this next fiscal year. At some point, Nacht cautioned, the AATA will have to curtail its operations in order to preserve its ability to provide operations for the Ann Arbor taxpayers.

Bernstein pointed out that the AATA does get millage funding from the city of Ypsilanti, and receives money from Pittsfield Township and Ypsilanti Township through purchase-of-service agreements. But he allowed that right now, the name of the authority is the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority, and currently that is the AATA’s core responsibility.

Nacht responded to Bernstein’s point by saying that the contributions that the AATA gets from its POSA partners are not sufficient to cover the current level of investments that the AATA is making in services that go in a countywide direction. He noted that there had been some discussion at the Ann Arbor city council table about commuter service from Chelsea and Canton into Ann Arbor. For the upcoming budget, he noted that the AATA is not using one cent of Ann Arbor taxpayer dollars to provide that service. [Up to now, the AATA has in part used local tax dollars to subsidize that service.] Federal dollars are being used to subsidize that service. But that allocation of federal dollars to those countywide services can only be done responsibly for a limited amount of time, he allowed. At some point, the AATA will have to scale back – if the community decides not to support those endeavors.

Nacht also said that in spite of the cutbacks in funding, he was proud of the fact that the AATA is not ignoring what’s going on in its core area. AATA staff are working on an expansion of service in the southeastern part of Ann Arbor – the Packard and Platt area, he said. And the FY 2013 budget contains funding for expanded operations for fixed route bus service in the Packard and Platt area.

FY 2013 Budget: Board Deliberations – Reserve

In the context of using $300,000 of the fund balance reserve, David Nacht said that in his capacity as treasurer he’d been very concerned about the reserve situation. He had kept an eye on it as the talks continued. He had received confirmation from Phil Webb, the AATA’s controller, that Webb expects there will be reserves to cover three months’ worth of operating expenses at the end of the coming fiscal year. Nacht felt comfortable that the amount of reserves is a reasonable and appropriate number, saying he felt that by historical standards, it was a very conservative number.

AATA board member Roger Kerson.

Roger Kerson wanted to know how much three months of operating reserves is, measured in dollars. The answer he got from Webb was about $8 million. Webb noted that even if the state operating assistance went to zero, it would not mean that all of the AATA’s revenue sources would disappear. So the question of how long the AATA could run if all revenue were to be eliminated was not easy to answer.

Eli Cooper also inquired in more detail about the reserve balance. Looking at the budget sheets for the last couple of years, the expenses had exceeded revenue – $400,000 in 2011, $1 million in 2012, and now another $300,000 in 2013. He asked for additional clarification on the projected balance at the end of 2013.

Nacht characterized the AATA as an organization with a $32-million-a-year operating budget. Historically, the organization has run balanced budgets or budgets that had slight surpluses, he said. The fiscal management by staff has been terrific, he said. The board has been willing to make cuts as necessary in order to keep things fiscally sound, he said. The last couple of years, the organization has been moving explicitly in the direction of dipping a little bit into the reserves in order to invest in the direction of the countywide program. And there’s still no question that it’s reasonable to expect the organization will have three months of cash and reserve at the end of fiscal 2013, Nacht concluded.

However, he felt that a more serious conversation would be necessary if there is not additional funding at the end of the year, in order to plan for fiscal year 2014. The organization would need to look at things more programmatically, and would have to look at contributions by other partners. Nacht did not feel that the AATA needed to have that conversation right now. Past prudence is benefiting the community now, he contended, because the AATA is able to have a sustained period of investments.

Cooper came back to the initial draft budget with its $20,000 surplus as contrasted with the $300,000 deficit in the now-proposed budget. He sought confirmation from Nacht that the AATA could maintain its policy position on the minimum reserve balance, and continue to provide the service it’s currently providing, and still meet all of the organization’s financial responsibilities. Nacht’s answer to Cooper: “Absolutely.”

Nacht noted he had served on the board for nine years. It’s a predictable cash flow – because the AATA knows when it receives big chunks of money from the city, and the AATA knows what its expenses are like. And the organization has a fair amount of control over the timing of big-ticket items, he said.

The $800,000 drop was a shock, but in the context of a $32 million budget, it’s not an enormous piece, Nacht felt. Bernstein agreed with Nacht that the AATA staff is doing an excellent job in managing the money. But he felt that the AATA is now at the end of its ability to fund anything else beyond the regular service. Further, said Bernstein, if the AATA gets hit with more surprises like the $800,000 reduction from the state, the AATA might have to look at cutting back on some of those investments that have already been made. Bernstein noted that the board has a policy of not providing service for which it could not pay.

Nacht’s response to Bernstein was somewhat more optimistic in tone. Nacht felt there would be serious conversations about the core status of some new offerings. But he felt it might be realistic to bring other partners on board to contribute. The AATA already partners with other organizations like governmental entities. Other transit systems have had success partnering with nonprofits, he said – hospitals and educational institutions, for example.

As the AATA demonstrates the value of its services and as it attracts more riders, fares could be adjusted for particular kinds of services, Nacht ventured. He allowed that there are federal regulations, as well as market forces that apply to all of that, and there is due process involved. He wasn’t suggesting that fare increases would just be sprung on people. But he stressed his hope that rather than simply cut back on a service, the AATA would take a more flexible approach – which included generating more revenue and controlling expenses so that the organization can continue to do what it’s trying to do.

Nacht did not want to just say, “We ran out of energy and we swam into the ocean and now are just going to drown. We’re not going to do that.” The AATA is also looking to see which investments will bear fruit, Nacht said. The transportation service between downtown Ann Arbor and Detroit Metro Airport – AirRide – is bearing some initial fruit, Nacht said. If that changes, and people stopped riding AirRide, then that’s not something the organization should keep. But right now AirRide seems like it’s a good success, he said.

FY 2013 Budget: Board Deliberations – What Got Cut?

Roger Kerson wanted to know what the biggest ticket items were for the reduction to the budget. Michael Ford told him that wages and consulting were among the big bigger items. Jesse Bernstein asked for a listing out of all the cuts.

Sue Gott wanted to know some examples that might have been on the board to cut, but had instead not been cut. She wanted to know what items would have been cut if reserves had not been available to use. Ford and Bernstein initially indicated a somewhat unclear understanding of Gott’s query. Ford eventually pointed to the desire not to cut any service from existing levels. So it appears that if no reserves had been available, the AATA would have opted to reduce service levels.

FY 2013 Budget: Board Deliberations – Work Plan

Nacht characterized the work plan as very sound, but felt that if there are additional fiscal shocks, then the board would need to look at adjusting the work plan in order to continue to run the organization in a fiscally sound manner consistent with its fiduciary duty to the larger community.

Outcome: On separate votes, the board approved the FY 2013 budget and work plan.

Future of the Board(s)

Two items considered by the AATA board related directly or indirectly to the planned formal request next week – at a special meeting of the AATA board scheduled for Oct. 2, 2012 – that the Washtenaw County clerk file articles of incorporation under Act 196 of 1986 for a new transit authority to be called The Washtenaw Ride.

Not on the agenda that was included in the board’s information packet was a resolution meant to give reassurance that representation on the new board would continue to be as inclusive as possible, even if some jurisdictions opt out of the new transit authority.

The second related item was the board’s meeting schedule.

Future of the Board(s): Background

The incorporation of the new authority under Act 196 of 1986 has statutory as well as contractual implications.

On the statutory side – because the incorporation by Washtenaw County of a new transit authority will include by default all the jurisdictions in Washtenaw County – the filing of the articles opens a 30-day window for jurisdictions to opt out of the arrangement. That can be accomplished through a vote of a jurisdiction’s governing body – a township board or city council, for example.

The contractual side is already reflected in the filing of the articles. That is, the request made by AATA to Washtenaw County to file the articles of incorporation would be handled under a four-party agreement – which was ratified earlier this year by the AATA, Washtenaw County, the city of Ann Arbor, and the city of Ypsilanti. That same contractual agreement would then govern the transition from the current AATA to The Washtenaw Ride.

The transition would potentially not take place at all, unless a voter-approved funding source for the expanded services were identified by the end of 2014.

The drafted resolution considered by the AATA board at its Sept. 27 meeting was meant in part to address possible concerns about what might happen if a large number of local governments in Washtenaw County opt out of the new transit authority.

The membership of the new authority’s board can be altered only with a 4/5 vote on the 15-member board – based on the articles of incorporation. So the resolution discussed by the AATA board at its Sept. 27 meeting would have, in some sense, expressed the position of current AATA board members as follows: When they become Act 196 board members, they would not go along with a restructuring of the Act 196 board, even if several jurisdictions opt out during the 30-day period – until the point of asking voters to approve a millage.

According to its articles of incorporation, the new authority will have a 15-member board, representing eight different districts in Washtenaw County. The Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti districts include just their respective cities – each city a single jurisdiction. Those two cities are not expected to opt out. Another single-jurisdiction district – Pittsfield Township – is not expected to opt out. But other districts include multiple jurisdictions. For example, the Northeast District includes four townships: Northfield, Superior, Salem and Ann Arbor. Some, or even all, of those townships could theoretically opt out.

The articles of incorporation spell out what’s supposed to happen when every jurisdiction in a district opts out:

SECTION 4.02: BOARD MAKE UP REVIEW
The directors shall revisit the Board make-up if
(a) either Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti City reduces or fails to contribute its charter millage to the Authority;
(b) if another community levies a millage and contributes it to the Authority; or
(c) if all communities within one of the Act 7 districts withdraw from the Authority.
The Board make-up shall also be reviewed and be subject to change by two-thirds of the directors after each census to assure appropriate attention to population distribution. [Note: The articles were amended in all other references to changes in membership to require a 4/5 majority vote. It's not clear if this instance was intentionally left intact or if it reflects an oversight.]

It’s essentially the Section 4.02(c) condition that the AATA board’s Sept. 27 resolution was meant to address.

Once incorporated, the Washtenaw Ride would still not have any assets or be able to offer any service. That transition would depend on voter approval of the funding source. The AATA has indicated that a possible scenario for funding is to ask voters in Washtenaw County to pay for the new transit authority with a property tax of 0.584 mills – in an election that could come as early as May 2013.

Based on discussion at a Sept. 25 meeting of Ann Arbor’s district advisory committee (DAC) – which helps advise the as-yet-unincorporated authority – a transition to a new authority could take several months. Even if a millage vote were to be held in May 2013 and approved by voters, it would still likely take until Sept. 30, 2013 – the end of the AATA’s fiscal year – to complete the transition.

So the AATA board will need to continue to meet in its current guise through the end of a meeting schedule approved on Sept. 27. The general pattern is to meet on the third Thursday of the month, with a starting time of 6:30 p.m. The meetings are held in the fourth-floor boardroom of the downtown Ann Arbor District Library, located at 343 N. Fifth Avenue. So possibly the last-ever meeting of the AATA board is scheduled for Sept. 19, 2013. [.pdf of AATA FY 2013 meeting schedule]

Future of the Board(s): Meeting Schedule

Jesse Bernstein noted that the board is looking at some potential changes in governance in the coming year. He wanted to underscore the fact that the meeting schedule is the current AATA board’s commitment to continue its work.

At such time that there is a transition to a new board, it will set up its own schedule and agenda, Bernstein said. The AATA board is also committed to having district representatives from the new authorities sit with it during its meetings.

Outcome: The board unanimously approved the FY 2013 meeting schedule.

Future of the Board(s): Public Commentary

Jim Mogensen told the board during public commentary that he did not think it was a good idea to incorporate a new Act 196 authority next week. He cited cultural as well as structural reasons. He explained the cultural side of things by telling the board what he had told the University of Michigan board of regents on a previous occasion: “One of the roles of senior staff is to allow the regents to believe that they are making the decisions, without allowing them to screw things up too much.”

The University Michigan is such a large organization that decisions of the regents become a technical thing, Mogensen said. In the same way, he said, the AATA has a very technical culture and has approached the transition in a technical way. On the other side, Mogensen said, if you look at the Ann Arbor city council or the Washtenaw County board of commissioners, they have a different culture that governs how things operate. The entire transition process of the AATA reflects a clashing of those two kinds of culture, he contended.

Mogensen felt it had taken the last 4-5 months to get things sorted out, and that things were still, in fact, being sorted out. People haven’t entirely processed what is going on, he said. So he did not think it was a good idea to proceed with incorporation of a new authority next week – which was not to say that he felt it would never be a good time to do that.

On the structural side, Mogensen felt it’s important to think carefully about purchase-of-service agreements. If a jurisdiction has such an agreement, he said, that did not mean it was in fact purchasing transportation. If board members didn’t understand what he was talking about, he advised, they could look at the operating statement and looked under the “fixed route” column: The expenses listed under purchased transportation show zero dollars. They are purchasing other kinds of transportation, but not fixed route transportation.

So he asked board members to consider a scenario where Ann Arbor Township decided to opt out of the Act 196 authority. Would we still have service to Washtenaw Community College? What’s happening with the purchase-of-service agreements, he said, is more like “opting in” than not. He felt like that had not been entirely sorted out.

Future of the Board(s): Act 196 Incorporation – CEO’s Perspective

On the topic of incorporation, AATA CEO Michael Ford said in his oral report to the board that he felt the time is right. The five-year transit program, guided by the 30-year master plan, envisioned clear benefits for all local governments and citizens in the county, he said. Ford wanted to be clear that the AATA would continue its relationship with each local government in the county – whether it participates in the Act 196 process or not. To get to the point where the process is today, he said, the AATA has conducted extensive outreach over the last year and a half or longer – listening and responding to questions, concerns and requests. Deletions and adjustments have been made to the plan, he said, in light of that input.

The “big ask,” Ford said, is for the whole team – the AATA board and the district representatives – to make a request of the county clerk next Tuesday, at the Oct. 2 special meeting, to incorporate. Ford indicated that the request would be for the Washtenaw County clerk to start the incorporation process on Oct. 3.

Future of the Board(s): Act 196 Incorporation – Resolution of Reassurance

In the latest round of district advisory committee (DAC) meetings, Bernstein reported, uncertainty had been expressed by many people about what might happen under different scenarios where different jurisdictions might opt out. Bernstein was keen to emphasize throughout the ensuing discussion that he was optimistic about the level of participation.

The resolved clause of the resolution read:

Now therefore be it resolved, the Act 55 [current AATA ] board members and the district representatives agree and commit to maintain the current representation of the new Act 196 board until such time as we have to present a service plan to the committee and request a millage.

Bernstein felt it was important to pass such a resolution because it was important to say to new partners: We’ll be with you as long as we can; and we’re not going to just arbitrarily and quickly make decisions.

Left to right: David Read and David Nacht.

The AATA wants to keep the district representatives at the table as long as it possibly can – to continue having their input and their linkages to their communities – even those that might have initially opted out.

Bernstein hoped that even if some communities initially opted out, that by the time the newly-incorporated authority decided to put a millage on the ballot, the full participation of the county could be achieved. Bernstein reported that Ypsilanti mayor Paul Schreiber, who serves as the city of Ypsilanti district representative on the as-yet-incorporated Act 196 board, had indicated his support of the resolution.

Representatives of three of the seven non-Ann Arbor districts in the new authority attended the AATA’s Sept. 27 meeting and participated in the discussion – Karen Lovejoy Roe (Southeast District); Bill Lavery (South Middle District); and David Read (North Middle District).

Read contemplated the possibility that a district representative “loses its constituency” because all of the municipalities in the district opt out. Do we actually have to dismiss that member from the board? he wondered. Is it written into the Act 196 statute or Act 7 or the articles of incorporation?

Bernstein told Read that he hoped that situation would not arise. What the resolution is trying to convey is that the current AATA board wants to keep everybody at the table as long as possible. If there were a situation that led by law to a required membership change, the change would have to be made. But if that change could be avoided or delayed, that’s what the resolution would do, Bernstein said.

Lavery said it sounded like a positive action, and one that would help in the educational effort. Lovejoy Roe indicated a generally positive attitude toward the resolution.

Karen Lovejoy Roe expressed some concerns about the representation on the future board of the new transit authority. Looking on is AATA board member Anya Dale.

Sue Gott wondered if input from the AATA’s legal counsel might be needed to understand clearly if the resolution works in the spirit of Act 196. Bernstein felt it was important to state what the board would like to see happen – and if there are legal issues that arise, those can be dealt with. As long as there is one jurisdiction that has not opted out of the district, then the representative of that district could represent the district, Bernstein said – at least that was Bernstein’s understanding from the AATA’s attorney.

Like Read, Charles Griffith felt there was not actually any requirement that representation be removed from any districts as a consequence of jurisdictions opting out. The new board would have the ability, he observed, to change the membership, which would require a 4/5 majority vote. So there are already protections, he noted. Bernstein allowed that the resolution might amount to “belt and suspenders.” Still, he felt it was important to make the statement now.

Eli Cooper was not comfortable with the wording of the resolved clause, saying that he didn’t feel he could resolve something on the behalf of others. So he wanted references to the district representatives. David Nacht expressed concern about making a resolution that might not be legally enforceable. He felt it would be better for the board to say exactly what it wants to do. He suggested replacing the existing resolved clause by the following: “We support the concept of representation of those communities on the 196 board that are currently represented.”

Nacht was concerned that the entire resolution might be legally void. Still, he wanted to make a record that is supportive of what Bernstein wanted to accomplish. Bernstein responded to Nacht by saying he felt the issue was about timing – when the board felt it was appropriate to take action on adjusting the Act 196 board membership. He wanted to go on record as saying that they would wait as long as possible before making those adjustments.

The conversation at the table continued at some length. Roger Kerson felt it made sense to let everybody keep coming to the meetings rather than cutting people off at some early stage. Lovejoy Roe expressed concern that representatives of districts that had opted out would be making decisions about levels of service and the timing of a millage.

Read wondered if it made sense to pursue incorporation as early as next week. He said he was concerned about a possible “rush to incorporate,” but allowed that for many people it’s not a rush to incorporate, but rather more a feeling that “finally we’re getting it done.” He felt there needs to be a way of figuring out how to keep the board balanced based on population.

Nacht drew an analogy to the first Constitutional convention, where no one had any idea that there would be political parties and that such political parties would dominate political life. The Constitutional convention has been held on the issue of transit, he said.

Outcome: Eventually the resolution was withdrawn, with the possibility that it would return on Oct. 2 when the board will meet in a special session to formally request that the Washtenaw County clerk file articles of incorporation for the new transit authority.

Connector Study

At its Sept. 27 meeting, the AATA was asked to give conditional authorization for a $1.5 million contract for further study of a transportation connector between the northeast and south sides of Ann Arbor.

Connector Study: Background

The authorization is conditional on additional local funding – in the amount of $60,000. The $60,000 would be part of a total $300,000 local match for a $1.2 million federal grant.

The corridor runs from US-23 and Plymouth southward along Plymouth to State Street and farther south to I-94. This alternatives analysis phase of the study is to result in identifying a preferred choice of technology (e.g., bus rapid transit, light rail, etc.) and the location of stations and stops.

The Ann Arbor city council voted on Sept. 4, 2012 to reject the $60,000 request, but reconsidered that vote two weeks later on Sept. 17, 2012. On reconsideration of the vote, the council decided to postpone a decision until Oct. 15.

In the meantime, some of the requested $60,000 might actually be provided by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority. Initial indications to the AATA were that the DDA’s budget constraints would not allow a contribution to the local match. But at a Sept. 26 meeting of the DDA’s operations committee, it was decided that the full DDA board would be asked to consider a connector study funding resolution at its Oct. 3 meeting. The DDA resolution would specify a $30,000 total contribution by the DDA, in two $15,000 payments to be made in each of the next two years. Members of the DDA’s operations committee wanted to make the $30,000 contingent on the city of Ann Arbor providing the other $30,000.

So the original resolution included in the Sept. 27 AATA board information packet specified the city of Ann Arbor as the source of that $60,000. However, the resolution was altered to specify more generally some other local funding – to accommodate the possibility that the Ann Arbor DDA might make a contribution as well.

The $60,000 is a portion of $300,000 in local funding that has been identified to provide the required match for a $1.2 million federal grant awarded last year to the AATA for the alternatives analysis phase. The breakdown of local support was originally intended to be: $60,000 from the city of Ann Arbor; $150,000 from the University of Michigan; and $90,000 from the AATA.

The timeline for completion of the study, which would be done by URS Corp., would be about a year and a half. Part of the AATA board’s rationale for moving ahead with the contingent authorization of the contract relates to the time that has elapsed since receiving a bid from URS to do the second phase of the study. According to an AATA staff memo, URS has held the price for the work at the original bid price – for now.

A feasibility study for the corridor costing $640,000 has already been completed by URS. That initial study concluded that some type of improved high-capacity transit system would be feasible – which could take the form of bus rapid transit, light rail transit, or elevated automated guideway transit. That study had been funded through a partnership with the city of Ann Arbor, the Ann Arbor DDA, University of Michigan and the AATA. Chronicle coverage of that feasibility study includes: “Transit Connector Study: Initial Analysis“; “AATA: Transit Study, Planning Updates“; and “Washtenaw Transit Talks in Flux.”

Connector Study: Board Deliberations

Reporting from the planning and development committee, Anya Dale reviewed the history and status of the project. She noted that to some extent it’s important to get the project moving – because even though the contractors held the original bid price, costs have been increasing. She hoped that it would go back to the city council and there would be more discussion about it.

Jesse Bernstein said he thinks there is a “movement afoot” to see if the Ann Arbor DDA might contribute to the funding of the study. So the language had been simplified to refer just to a local share instead of the city of Ann Arbor specifically, he said. He noted that $150,000 is coming from the University of Michigan and $90,000 from the AATA, with the remaining $60,000 from a local share. That total of $300,000 is the local match for a $1.2 million federal grant to conduct the analysis, he said. It would run from northeast Ann Arbor through the university and downtown Ann Arbor to Briarwood Mall and possibly beyond, he said. He characterized it as a very major corridor. He reminded his board colleagues that the feasibility analysis had shown that the utilization in the middle section of the corridor would justify a fixed-rail type technology.

David Nacht makes a point during the Sept. 27 AATA board meeting.

Eli Cooper asked for an amendment to one of the whereas clauses to mirror the same consideration as the amendment to the resolved clause – to refer more generally to a local share.

David Nacht described it as “rather unfortunate” that the project has become the subject of politicization at the Ann Arbor city council. It’s not inappropriate for the city council to consider the issue in a serious way, he allowed. Consideration of transit in Ann Arbor is an appropriate thing for the city council to consider, he continued. But the city council had actually done that in the past, he contended. The AATA, University Michigan, the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority and the city of Ann Arbor – those four partners – had been working for “not months, but years” in a direction to try to figure the project out collaboratively, he said.

If you’re a taxpayer, Nacht said, you want the government, whoever they are, to do something with that money they’re collecting. He called it a “wonderful thing” that different units of government – the AATA, which gets a lot of federal money; the University Michigan, which is a “separate beast”; the DDA, which is a creature of the city with its own tax base; and the city – are working together with a coherent vision of figuring out what is the best bang for the taxpayer buck. How can we move people around efficiently in order to help get people to and from work, to and from school? What is rational and efficient? he asked.

The connector project study uses federal dollars with a small amount of local dollars, he pointed out. That’s because the feds say: If you really want to improve transit, let us know you care – by putting in some local money to study it. And so up to this point, a lot of work had been done to do that. “This is not controversial, it shouldn’t be controversial,” Nacht concluded.

Nacht asked Eli Cooper to put on the public record some comments about why the study is so important. Cooper responded to Nacht by noting that the connector project was one of several strategies that was included in the transportation master plan update adopted by the city council in 2009. The process for updating the plan had included consideration of what Cooper called the “do nothing” alternative. It would be possible to allow the community to continue to grow without making investments in enhanced transportation, he ventured. And the decision not to fund the study amounts to a decision not to invest, he said.

The analysis of the “do nothing” alternative that went into the city’s 2009 transportation master plan update showed that there would be an erosion in the quality of life – congestion on many, if not all, of the radial corridors serving the downtown. That erosion of the quality of life was deemed to be unacceptable in the course of the planning process, so a variety of different alternatives were studied – connector-type service, enhance local transit, or ideas for bringing commuters in from greater distances – all to relieve the stress and strain on local streets. All those kinds of elements were woven into the fabric of the city’s transportation master plan.

Now is an opportunity to recall the importance of these investments, Cooper said. He noted that questions had been asked by Ann Arbor city councilmembers who were not familiar with that background, so he would be providing that to them on Oct. 15 when the council reconsiders the connector study funding. Cooper said it’s important for city councilmembers to understand the relationship between the various initiatives, the investments, the timing of those investments, and the anticipated benefit of making those investments. So he will be presenting to the council a scenario for what might happen if the city council decides not to make those investments.

Questions also been asked about how the connector relates to commuter rail and how that relates to the transportation master plan. Cooper noted that the 2009 transportation master plan lays out a long-term strategy that describes how all of the various initiatives fit together to result in the maintenance or enhancement of the city’s current quality of life. He characterized the various initiatives as “the lubrication that keeps the transportation system moving.” And by the “transportation system,” he stressed, he did not mean simply buses, but rather pedestrians, bicyclists, automobiles, buses and trains. As a city staff member, he felt he needed to do a better job in making sure that the policy leaders, who are worrying mightily about the investment, can understand what the costs are of failing to act. He needs to make sure they also understand what the benefits are of moving forward. He couldn’t predict where the council might decide, but the information would be framed for them at their Oct. 15 meeting, Cooper concluded.

Outcome: The board unanimously approved the conditional contract for the connector study.

Routine MDOT Processes

In front of the board for its consideration was a resolution to authorize the AATA’s chief executive officer to sign and execute contracts with the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) without seeking a separate board resolution – as long as the contracts are less than $1 million.

According to the staff memo accompanying the resolution, there are 10-15 separate agreements between MDOT and AATA. A staff analysis of the resolution allows that there’s a risk to the practice – that the board might not be aware of the contracts that the CEO is executing. That risk is meant to be mitigated by a new practice of reporting all such contracts to the board’s performance monitoring and external relations committee.

Also on the agenda for the board’s consideration was a grant agreement with MDOT for a contract of over $1 million. MDOT is providing the local match – which totals $2.414 million – for AATA’s FY 2012 federal Section 5307 grant. [.pdf of FY 2012 expenditures for Section 5307 program]

At the meeting, the two items were summarized as part of the performance monitoring and external relations committee report. The report was given by Roger Kerson, who had been the only board attendee at the committee meeting that month. There was not a lot of debate on any of the resolutions, he quipped: “Most days I agree with myself, but not every day.”

On the blanket authority given to the CEO for contracts under $1 million, Kerson noted that this authorization is done on an annual basis. It turns out to be a more efficient way to run the routine business – given that in the course of the year there are up to a dozen or so such agreements. The board gets a report of each agreement that is executed, he noted.

Outcome: Both votes related to MDOT contracts were unanimous.

CEO Severance Clause

Not originally on the board’s agenda was an item related to CEO Michael Ford’s compensation agreement. David Nacht reported that a committee of the board, consisting of Roger Kerson and Sue Gott, is negotiating with CEO Michael Ford on his new compensation agreement.

Left to right: Eli Cooper and Michael Ford.

There is no new agreement yet, Nacht reported. The compensation agreement contains a severance clause, and Nacht said that Ford was willing to work without a written compensation agreement, but wants to make sure that his severance clause stays in effect even though there is no new compensation agreement. So Ford had asked that the board vote on that – and Nacht felt that it was a reasonable position for Ford to take.

The resolution the board considered extended the severance clause in the compensation agreement for the next year, or until such time as a new compensation agreement was made, which would supersede the resolution.

Eli Cooper indicated that he couldn’t support the resolution – because he was not familiar with the contract or with the compensation agreement and their terms. He explained that he was appointed after those agreements were made, he did not feel he had enough information to make a decision.

Outcome: The board voted, with dissent from Cooper, to extend the severance clause in the CEO’s compensation agreement.

Election of Officers

The AATA elects board officers to one-year terms in sync with the fiscal year, which runs from October through September. Jesse Bernstein has served as board chair for the last two years and will continue to serve on the board. The board was asked to consider a nomination of Charles Griffith as chair.

Griffith is climate & energy program director for the Ecology Center. He has already served for six years on the board, and his current appointment lasts another four years. He was re-appointed to the board on May 2, 2011 to a five-year term after first being appointed on Sept. 19, 2006.

Election of Officers: Board Deliberations

As is typically the case, David Nacht reported, an elections committee was established – consisting of himself and Charles Griffith. The first thing that happened, he said, was that Jesse Bernstein had indicated to the committee that he was not interested in continuing as chair of the board. A “strenuous effort was made” to get Bernstein to reconsider, but Bernstein had “stuck to his guns,” Nacht said.

Nacht explained that it wasn’t the case that Griffith was being nominated because Griffith had been on the elections committee. It was due to the fact that Griffith is a senior member of the organization, Nacht said. Griffith has served as an active board member for many years, but has not served as chair, Nacht observed. He noted that he himself had served a stint as chair of the board. And Griffith is willing to serve as chair, Nacht continued.

Nacht said he had spoken outside of Griffith’s presence with various people on the board, e-mailed with various people, and heard comments from a variety of people. And it’s the committee’s recommendation that the board put forward Griffith as the chair, Nacht said. But Nacht felt it was important to take nominations from the floor in case anyone else wanted to offer to serve.

No one else made a different nomination, so Bernstein offered some explanation for his decision not to continue as chair. He has served for two years as chair, and he believed the position needs to be rotated: “My feeling is we really need to rotate that and give everybody a chance at the joy and happiness of being in that role.” That was his rationale for not wanting to serve a third term as chair. It was organizational and procedural and had nothing to do with anything else, he said.

The vote for Griffith as chair was unanimous, with Griffith abstaining.

Nacht went on to describe the two other board officer positions – treasurer and secretary. He noted that he himself had been serving as treasurer for the last few months at the chair’s request – and he was willing to continue to do that, though he had no tremendous to desire to do so. “If anyone else likes to spend a lot of time looking at numbers, I would absolutely be honored to cede….” Nacht continued: “Are there any nominations from the floor. Please?” About entertaining nominations, Bernstein quipped, “David, that’s my job.” Nacht was then elected as board treasurer by unanimous vote.

Nacht described the office of secretary as largely ceremonial – but allowed that theoretically it might not be ceremonial because the signature on a document might prove to be important for some reason. Nacht said that for the position of secretary he had sent an e-mail asking for interest in serving in that capacity. The first response he received that he saw was from Anya Dale. Nacht also noted that a willingness to serve as secretary had been indicated by Eli Cooper. However, Nacht reported that Cooper had deferred to Dale. Based on that, the elections committee recommendation was for Dale as secretary. Dale was elected unanimously as board secretary.

Outcome: The board elected Charles Griffith as chair, David Nacht as treasurer, and Anya Dale as secretary.

The AATA board has two working committees: the planning and development committee, and the performance monitoring and external relations committee. Membership was not decided at the Sept. 27 meeting. Griffith said he knew he was going to be nominated as chair, but he did not want to be presumptuous – so he had wanted first to talk to board members individually about their interest in serving on the two different committees of the AATA board. But he wanted to make the committee appointments as soon as possible. He thanked everyone for their support. He said he was humbled but also reassured, because he would be serving with two former chairs – Nacht and Bernstein. He felt he would get plenty of guidance and corrective action if he strayed off course: “We’ll have an exciting year, I think.”

Communications, Committees, CEO, Commentary

At its Sept 27 meeting, the board entertained various communications, including its usual reports from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, the planning and development committee, as well as from CEO Michael Ford. The board also heard commentary from the public. Here are some highlights.

Comm/Comm: Ridership

In his report from the performance monitoring and external relations committee, Roger Kerson said that even though the news about the budget had not been good, that had been counterbalanced by news about ridership. It’s increasing in every area, he reported. Part of that is due to a national trend of increasing use in transit.

Comm/Comm: New Website

The new AATA website is getting close to completion and would be ready to be unveiled soon, Roger Kerson reported from the performance monitoring and external relations committee. He felt that timed well in terms of the implementation of the transit master plan – because riders would have more and better ways to access information about bus arrivals, departures and scheduling.

Comm/Comm: LAC

The local advisory council (LAC) is a group that provides input and feedback to AATA on disability and senior issues. Cheryl Weber noted that there had been some continued discussion at the last meeting about the ability of riders to bring groceries onto vehicles. The group had received a visit from a representative of the University of Michigan Health System in response to concerns that LAC has expressed about access to the hospital. The driver appreciation program has yet to be implemented, but Weber hoped that it would be put in place in some form in the near future.

Comm/Comm: Advocacy for Most Vulnerable

During public commentary at the start of the Sept. 27 meeting, Thomas Partridge advocated for the rights of the most vulnerable residents of Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, and the state of Michigan. They should have access to affordable public transportation, including accommodations for disabled people and senior citizens, he said.

During public commentary at the conclusion of the meeting, Partridge said he was an advocate for those who need public services the most – middle-class residents, senior citizens, and disabled people. Because the meeting had run long, and was pushing towards the nine o’clock closing time of the Ann Arbor District Library, Jesse Bernstein limited closing public commentary turns to one minute instead of the usual two minutes. Partridge objected to that, as did Carolyn Grawi, who followed Partridge to the podium at the conclusion of the meeting.

Grawi is director for advocacy and education at the Center for Independent Living. She congratulated Charles Griffith on his election as chair and thanked Jesse Bernstein for his service as chair for the past two years. She also thanked members of the community who had attended the district advisory committee meetings representing the disability community.

Present: Charles Griffith, David Nacht, Jesse Bernstein, Eli Cooper, Sue Gott, Roger Kerson, Anya Dale.

Next special meeting: Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor.

Next regular meeting: Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012 at 6:30 p.m. at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave., Ann Arbor. [Check Chronicle event listings to confirm date]

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The draft AATA budget provided on Sept. 12 to the city council as a communication item for its Sept. 17 meeting showed a surplus of $22,692 over the budgeted expenses of $33,344,048. However, on Sept. 14 the AATA was notified by the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT) that a new interpretation of the state’s operating assistance formula would reduce AATA’s assistance by $803,500. The AATA financial staff responded by reducing expenses, but left about $300,000 to be covered by the fund balance reserve.

So the resolution included in the AATA board’s information packet provides a budget resolution worded as follows: “It is resolved, that AATA shall utilize approximately $300,000 of its Unrestricted Net Assets for the purpose of balancing the FY2013 Operating Budget of $32,700,181, that such budget is hereby approved to become effective October 1, 2012, and that the budget is assigned to the Performance Monitoring and External Relations Committee (PMER) for appropriate monitoring.”

The possibility of the reduction in funding was known previously. At the board’s Aug. 16, 2012 meeting, Charles Griffith had reported from the performance monitoring and external relations committee on the topic. From The Chronicle’s report: “An issue of concern, Griffith said, is the possibility of state operating assistance decreasing for fiscal year 2013, due to a change in the formula the state has been using to distribute money to transit agencies around the state. It could result in a loss of $800,000 in next year’s budget. Griffith said that ‘we have folks working on that,’ and the AATA is working with some of the other transit agencies in the state, and will be attempting to address that going forward.”

About half the reductions in expenses in the now proposed budget, compared to the draft, were made in wage reductions – a total of $294,473. Percentage-wise, the budget for management wages was reduced by 2.79% compared to a 1.24% decrease in non-management wages. [Google Spreadsheet compiled by The Chronicle showing contrast by category between draft and final budget.]

The AATA board’s Sept. 27 meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the fourth-floor conference room at the Ann Arbor District Library, 343 S. Fifth Ave.