Oregon Legislators calling for TriMet audit


Joseph Rose of The Oregonian is reporting that several members of the Oregon Legislature are now calling for Secretary of State Kate Brown’s office to conduct an independent “emergency” audit of TriMet, and have amended HB3316, originally introduced to change how the agency’s board of directors is chosen, to require that this be done (and removing language from the bill concerning the TriMet board). The bill appears to have broad support within the House, and Governor Kitzhaber has indicated it would be signed if it reached his desk (he had previously threatened to veto any bills taking away his authority to appoint the TriMet board).

TriMet, in a statement, stated that GM Neil McFarlane and other senior managers would cooperate fully with any audits that were ordered.

Previously, Portland Transport suggested that an audit would be a good idea. When we broached the subject with McFarlane during our annual interview series, he stated he was “certainly open to it”, but questioned whether such an exercise would reveal anything that couldn’t be discovered from public records.


15 responses to “Oregon Legislators calling for TriMet audit”

  1. My apologies i haven’t been keeping up around here, but I would really like to see (and join) a caravan (or group WES/1X ride) down to Salem. The article says “The amended bill is expected go to before the House Rules Committee in the coming days. Gorsek, a freshman representative, is confident that it will pass.” And even if it does, a hearing could be used to give it ammunition to get through later steps.

    Overall, as the person who films the board meetings, I don’t see TriMet trying to deal with the cost of health care (some of which TriMet probably could avoid creating), or arguing for the state to fund Youth Pass like it funds yellow school buses for every other district, or having an oversight committee focusing on operational issues that riders can go to (instead of having to go to the Board of Directors). And I do think that Chris Smith had a valid opinion here.

    questioned whether such an exercise would reveal anything that couldn’t be discovered from public records.

    Even if not, it seems an audit could give a through report of those public records.

  2. Of course, an audit can also help verify whether the public records (specifically those related to TriMet) are correct, and if not, why not.

    Benchmarks based off of public data are useful, but incomplete.

  3. I’d like to offer a little more context to Neil’s response to Chris’ suggestion for an audit and see how TriMet stacks up against other peers.

    As you posted, Neil responded in April that he was certainly open to it and that a lot of the information regarding our financials and how we compare to peer agencies is available, since it was compiled for interest arbitration.

    Neil’s comment today regarding the bill and the audit provides more context:

    “Audits are conducted on a regular basis, and we welcome this review by the Secretary of State’s Office. It’s another opportunity to have a third party provide an unbiased assessment of TriMet’s finances and operations. My staff and I will assist in any way possible. We believe this will be constructive for TriMet and the community we serve.

    Here’s a link to the full news feed:
    http://news.trimet.org/2013/06/rep-gorsek-state-legislature-call-for-trimet-audit/

  4. I also wanted to clarify that the audit itself is not an emergency despite an emergency clause in the amendment. In fact, nearly half of the bills introduced so far (1,226 out of 2,662) contain the emergency clause. This clause simply allows the legislation to go into effect when passed rather than waiting to take effect on January 1 of the year after passage, which is standard.

  5. Good.

    I hope our upstanding ELECTED officials will find TriMet’s utter treatment of the bus system to be disgraceful, if not criminal, and part of the problem for TriMet’s financial peril – and force TriMet to start treating ALL riders fairly and equally – including reinvesting in the bus system. Much of TriMet’s “expensive bus service” is simply due to TriMet’s failure to obtain easily attainable FTA grants to replace buses at 12-15 years of age, resulting in a fleet that is less reliable and requires more maintenance (and most cost), and requires more fuel (and more cost) to keep on the road.

    While nearly every other transit agency in the nation used ARRA (stimulus) funds to renew their bus fleet, TriMet insisted that they couldn’t do that, and instead blew the money on a laundry list of hardly necessary projects to “create jobs” (and not one of those jobs still exists today). C-Tran has a really nice, modern, low cost bus fleet that serves the residents of Vancouver well; we get stuck with buses that lack air conditioning on these 85 degree days.

  6. Hahaha!
    Can’t wait to see how this is handled.

    And as far as this is concerned:

    Previously, Portland Transport suggested that an audit would be a good idea. When we broached the subject with McFarlane during our annual interview series, he stated he was “certainly open to it”, but questioned whether such an exercise would reveal anything that couldn’t be discovered from public records.

    You have any idea how expensive it is to get ‘public records’ from the ‘public agency’ called Trimet.

    Let’s put it this way, I’d have to pony up one year of my retirement checks to get all those records.

  7. including reinvesting in the bus system

    Isn’t it true that TriMet is indeed getting new buses, including the largest one-year order in a long time starting about now?

    Also, Joe did take the “emergency audit” phrase out of his post.

  8. I look forward to ATU initiating its own public audit. And the Oregonian listing the compensation and benefits of all its employees.

    And of course pigs taking to the air.

  9. I was wondering about the “emergency” bit–my suspicion was indeed that, as Mary indicated, that this was so the law could go into force immediately upon the governor’s signature, without the usual waiting period–as opposed to some scenario where accountants and cops are raiding TriMet HQ to rescue incriminating documents from the shredders… :)

  10. Jason McHuff, [Moderator: Personally-directed remark removed. –ES], wrote: Isn’t it true that TriMet is indeed getting new buses, including the largest one-year order in a long time starting about now?

    Jason, is it NOT true that TriMet continues to have the oldest average bus age of any major North American bus fleet?

    Is it NOT true that even with this “large” bus order, TriMet will continue to have the oldest bus fleet for at least five years, and that TriMet’s “large” bus order is not even keeping up with the fact that now all buses up to the 2500 series are now of age for replacement per Federal Transit Administration guidelines? That leaves the only buses that actually meet federal guidelines are buses 2601-2655 (55 buses), 2701-2725 (25 buses), 2801-2839 (39 buses), 2901-2940 (39 buses) and 3001-3055 (55 buses) – 213 out of over 600 buses? And even using TriMet’s definition that buses have a 16 year lifespan, that only includes the 2200-2300 series buses (118 more buses, total of 331 buses out of over 600 buses that even meet TriMet’s own, much more generous definition of the proper age of a bus.

    Is it not true, Jason McHuff, that 70 buses a year will require six years – and that doesn’t even account for the fact that the current bus fleet will only continue to get older, requiring even more buses to be replaced? And is it not true, Jason McHuff, that TriMet has repeatedly in the past cancelled bus orders to free up money for MAX light rail projects, but never the other way around?

    Is there anything else that you want to disclose about TriMet’s audit? Since you seem to defend TriMet at every turn, let’s see your honest and outright defense of TriMet’s bus age, and its refusal to properly invest in the bus fleet in a timely manner, and why does TriMet have 23 year old buses in the fleet. Please, let’s hear your justification.

  11. Trimet also has 26 type 1 light rail vehicles that are 27 years old. Why aren’t you pushing them to replace these, as well?

  12. Page 38 of TriMet’s FY14 Financial Forecast assumes $327 million to replace 36 Type 1’s and bring in 12 additional LRV’s in FY27. The report notes that this action will push debt service to at least 7.5% of continuing revenues.

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