Local

MARTA Board Approves Budget, Warns of Future Cuts

June 11th, 2012

The MARTA board has approved its budget for the next fiscal year. Despite lower revenues, fares and service will remain unchanged, at least for now.

Largely due to lower sales tax collections throughout Fulton and DeKalb, MARTA’s budget is down about $30 million from last year.

To close the gap, MARTA is using tens of millions from its fast-depleting reserve fund.

State law requires MARTA to maintain approximately $40 million in reserves. MARTA’s Chief Financial Officer Davis Allen says if current trends continue, the fund will fall below the minimum amount by 2016.

“What we’re targeting by fiscal year 2016 we must cut at least $50-60 million out of our operating budget, barring the fact that we’re not getting new revenue sources.”

MARTA has hired an independent consulting firm to help figure out where the system can make cuts. The report is due later this summer.

“MARTA in total needs to reduce – not just staffing, but service, all across MARTA – there’s no one big area that’s causing this deficit. It’s MARTA as a total.”

Meanwhile, this is the last fiscal year MARTA is exempt from a state law requiring it to spend 50 percent of revenue on capital projects and 50 percent on operating costs.