Metro Budget - III (you should really read this one)

Yesterday we had another budget hearing. Appearing before the Council were MTA, Public Works and Metro Water Services.


MTA: The Metro Transit Authority is headed up by Paul Ballard. Paul has been at MTA since 2002 and represents, for me anyway, the new breed of department head. He has worked in the private and public sectors and brings innovation and imagination to MTA.

The MTA is facing some significant price shocks - chief among those is fuel. As a result we are looking at reduced service and higher fares. How services will be reduced and how high the fares will go will be determined by the MTA board. The subsidy provided by Metro will be cut to $16.9 million or 5.14%. One bright spot is that MTA will be offering the free smart card service to Metro employees. So, like Vanderbilt University, Metro employees will just swipe their smart cards and ride the bus. This is good for Metro because it allows our employees to save on transportation. It is good for Nashville because we put more people on the bus and less on the roads. I hope that the reduced service does not retard adoption of this service.

Public Works: Public Works is the face of Metro government. Every single day of your life you come in contact with the services they provide - from garbage pick-up, to street cleaning to pothole repair to brush pick-up. Nonetheless, they are taking a big budget hit. About 15% and 57 employees are enumerated in the budget book. The 15% would be worse were it not for the use of $3.9 million in reserves from the waste management fund. My understanding is that the 57 employee layoff won't be that large. Whether it is 57 or 47 or 40. That is that number of employees who lose their jobs, their health insurance, their family's security. Tis not something I take lightly.

The Public Works budget calls for reductions but not elimination of any service. Brush pick-up will go from 5 times a year to 3 times. The Public Works department will pick up the brush instead of the contractor we have used the last several years. Street construction program will lose 11 employees. Crews on garbage pick-up will be reduced. It will be tough but the director of Public Works assures us that the public will not notice the difference.

Water: There isn't much new here. I have written ad nauseum about this department. Here and Here and Here.The only news is that the Finance director indicated that rate reform is in the offing about 6 months from now. You may not like the notion of higher rates but consider the fact that were it not for some pretty sound management, your rates would have gone up a while ago.