Transit Agencies’ Rift Grows Over Fare Hike Refusal

For the third time in recent months, a recommendation to raise basic bus fares to as much as a dollar was rejected Thursday by the RTD board, which instead voted to plead once more for outside funds to erase its looming budget deficit.

In what is becoming a game of political chicken between Los Angeles County’s two large rival transit agencies, RTD board members roundly criticized the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission for being stingy with transit dollars. The board then voted to ask the commission for a special $9.5-million grant to balance its $513-million 1987-88 operating budget.

Another Plan Rejected

The unusual request came just a day after the commission, which oversees the disbursement of most transit dollars in the county, rejected another financing proposal suggested by the Southern California Rapid Transit District to avoid a fare hike. Suggestions to raise the basic 85-cent fare have ranged from 5 to 15 cents.

Battered by nearly a year of revelations and allegations of waste and mismanagement, the RTD board is trying to redirect some of the heat for its financial problems to the commission.

A long-time power struggle between the agencies has intensified recently. State lawmakers, reacting to reports of the RTD’s many problems, have moved to merge the agencies.

“The vote by the commission (on the $9.5-million grant) will be a vote on whether or not they are going to impose a fare increase on the elderly, the disabled and the poor,” said board member Nate Holden. Board member Charles Storing referred to commission members as “sharks,” board member Jay Price called them “yo-yos” and board member Gordana Swanson said they are “drunk with power.”

Other board members suggested the commission would have to take responsibility for a total shutdown of the RTD system, which carries 1.5 million riders a day.

Dyer Warning

That was based on a report by General Manager John Dyer which warned that the federal and state governments might cut off operating funds next month if the RTD does not adopt a balanced budget in the next two weeks.

Dyer told the board that the commission has at least $12 million in surplus funds available that could be used to balance the RTD budget--an assessment denied by commission officials.

“All the money . . . for bus operations has been allocated,” said Jim Sims, a senior analyst for the commission. He said the commission staff “is not likely to recommend (more) money” for the RTD. “We think they have got a long-term problem and they have to deal with it as a long-term problem,” he said.

“Dealing with that problem may mean having to raise fares, or they may have to cut service,” Sims said.

Commission staff members contend that the RTD’s financial problems are largely of its own making. For example, $5.7 million of the deficit would not be there if the district had properly managed the financing of its construction and major equipment purchase programs, commission staffers say.

“They were paying old bills with new money,” Sims said. “They were not spending money in accordance with state law” and as a result now have a $31-million shortfall that must be made up over the next three years.

Stricter Requirements

RTD Assistant General Manager John Richeson said the commission created the capital funding deficit by imposing new, stricter requirements on the program. If there was mismanagement of the program, “it was on the part of the commission,” he said.

Some RTD board members said a fare hike will be unavoidable if the commission turns down the request for additional funds. Price said cuts in fat had already been made and the RTD was now down to the “bone and marrow.”

Board member Carmen Estrada, arguing strongly against a fare hike, called on Dyer to prepare a plan for cutbacks that would eliminate the deficit. So far, Dyer has not produced such a plan, instead returning with proposed fare hikes. “I don’t have that belt-tightening feeling,” she said, citing a package of administrative staff raises planned, the district’s expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on lobbyists and “all those things we have come under criticism for.”