Tulsa Transit will present a balanced fiscal year 2020 budget of $23.2 million to the city council.
The balanced budget comes after forecasting in May 2018 that city general revenue funding deficits would start in FY2020.
"Last year, we thought we’d be able to solve it by being better managers, and it turns out that we have been able to accumulate some reserves by being better managers and to use those reserves to keep our budget balanced for the coming year," said Tulsa Transit General Manager Ted Rieck.
The budget puts Peoria Avenue Aero operations, a downtown and midtown circulator, and some future projects on Vision funding. Tulsa Transit is including unused federal air quality dollars and more from a capital reserve fund in the FY2020 budget. The agency is also counting on increased fare revenue from new bus rapid transit service and on contracting out circulator service rather than running it in house.
"If we weren’t able to find the resources to plug that hole, then we would be looking at service reductions or fare increases or both, and we don’t want to be in that position because a lot of people depend upon our services," Rieck said.
Those moves push a projected general revenue deficit to FY2021, expected to be about $500,000.
To deal with the FY2021 deficit, Tulsa Transit officials plan to ask for a bigger increase in city general revenue funding, assume a bigger federal rebate for compressed natural gas usage and reduce nightline bus service by half.
Rieck said they’re hopeful for state legislation that would change how public transportation is managed, potentially making more state funding available.
"Nothing’s guaranteed and Oklahoma’s a tough state to get any kind of an increase in funding, but that’s one of the strategies that we’re looking at," Rieck said. "Long term, we want to see about creating a regional transit authority, maybe bring more cities into the transit picture."
The FY2020 budget relies on $7.6 million in general revenue and $3.1 million in Vision Tulsa funding for a total of $10.7 million from the City of Tulsa.
Tulsa Transit will present its budget to the city council by the end of the month.
