The City of Atlanta has completed its audit of the More MARTA Atlanta program and found that MARTA owes about $70 million to these transportation projects.
The financial review of More MARTA, the 40-year plan for transit expansion funded by a half-penny sales tax voters approved back in 2016, also revealed that spending on the More MARTA enhanced bus service was significantly lower than the amounts allocated for it in the budgets for fiscal years 2021 and 2022, according to the City.
Between fiscal year 2017 and 2022, when the program’s operations expenses exceeded the budgeted amounts, MARTA transferred funds for expansion projects from the City of Atlanta Reserve account to MARTA’s Unified Reserve to cover the deficit, the audit found. MARTA transferred funds from its reserve back into the City’s reserve account when More MARTA operational costs were lower than the annual budget, but the surplus years didn’t make up for the losses.
The City of Atlanta agrees with all 10 recommendations made by the auditor, Mauldin & Jenkins.
MARTA agrees with a majority of the findings as well, but challenged some methodology of the audit, calling the calculations “wrong” and “flawed” in a statement to press on Monday.
Mayor Dickens, MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood, and chief financial officers and attorneys for both the City and the transit agency have spoken about the findings and are working on a path forward, according to a press release from the City of Atlanta.
The relationship between the City and MARTA was described as “strained” last year as the city council pushed for an audit of the More MARTA program. Officials at MARTA initially called the city council’s decision “disappointing and disingenuous.”
MARTA claimed “no shortfall” in the roughly $2 billion first phase of the More MARTA improvement plan last year, despite a former deputy manager estimating a deficit as high as $852 million and debt that could hamper the longer-term expansion plans.
The transit agency and the City agreed to the terms of the audit last summer after years of slow progress on the More MARTA program and repeated cuts to the scope and number of projects originally voted on by Atlantans. The initial list of 70 potential operational enhancements, service improvements, and future high-capacity transit proposed in 2016 was narrowed down to 17 by the MARTA Board in 2018.
A proposal for priority projects to be redefined again in 2023 is still on the table after MARTA and the City realized they still may not be able to deliver on the More MARTA agenda due to rising costs. This “resequencing” would designate nine capital projects as phase one, to be completed by 2028, and 10 capital projects for phase two.
The new list has yet to be adopted by all governing bodies, and now there are questions about additional projects, including the MARTA infill stations proposed by the Dickens Administration earlier this year, which are not accounted for in previous versions of the More MARTA list.
Recommendations from Mauldin & Jenkins include improving communication between the City and MARTA, adopting a revised list of projects, and creating an approved methodology for reporting for calculating More MARTA operational costs.
The auditors also suggested that MARTA and the City refrain from naming specific transit types—such as light rail or bus rapid transit — for new projects until after there is an official analysis and selection of the best service mode, known as the “locally preferred alternative.” This comes after some projects originally presented to residents as future light rail lines have shifted to planned bus service routes due to costs.
Following the release of the findings, MARTA contested the dollar amounts, claiming that Mauldin & Jenkins used flawed methodology to calculate the cost of bus services.
“MARTA informed the City and Mauldin & Jenkins of their flawed methodology and is disappointed that our responses to the audit which were provided to both parties were not included or referenced,” the agency said in a statement shared by spokesperson Stephany Fisher on Monday.
Both parties acknowledge that the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) between MARTA and the City should be updated to better set expectations and manage the responsibilities of the More MARTA program.
“The current IGA is cumbersome, restrictive and ineffective. The agreement should be restructured for greater clarity and efficiency, minimizing the impact of shifting political dynamics between and during an administration,” MARTA said in its statement.
Nearly all the key decision-makers at the City and MARTA at the inception of the More MARTA program are no longer with their organizations, making it difficult to trace who made decisions about the program changes and why, the audit notes.
The “locally preferred alternative” for the Atlanta Beltline has been settled for years. The problem is not that the public was told the mode of transit too early, it’s that those in charge have allowed the conclusion to be revisited over and over, wasting time and taxpayer dollars.