Central Arkansas Transit Authority will ask its municipal and county partners for an additional $514,240 to operate next year, in part to give its 200 employees a 3 percent raise, under a recommendation the agency's board of directors will consider later this month.
The recommendation came Wednesday at a meeting of the board's budget committee.
The additional monies requested, if approved by the board and the partners, will raise the total from CATA's municipal and county partners to $12,673,017, which is a 4.23 percent increase over what the agency expects to receive from its partners this year -- $12,158,777.
More than half of the increase, or $269,924, will come from North Little Rock to help make up for the end of a federal grant that allowed CATA to add two Sunday bus routes in North Little Rock and extend evening service by two hours to match the operating hours in Little Rock.
Little Rock still will provide the bulk of the contributions from local partners, $8,764,917 in 2015, or 2.7 percent more than 2014, according to draft budget documents distributed at Wednesday's meeting.
Passenger income next year is projected to total $1,928,761, or $81,363 less than the $2,010,123 the agency expects this year, primarily because of the drop in ridership that typically occurs as the economy improves and gas prices fall.
All 2015 income is projected to total $16,317,599, or $55,672 more than anticipated this year.
Some agency costs are offset by $387,488 in savings in fuel costs anticipated next year with the introduction of compressed natural gas buses.
In March, the CATA board approved five proposals worth $9.3 million that will lead to the purchase of 15 buses to run on compressed natural gas and the construction of a station to fuel them. Agency officials expect the buses will arrive in August, about two months after the fueling station is built.
The new buses will replace eight 2001 buses in the agency's fleet of 59 in regular passenger service and seven 2003 buses. Three 2003 models will remain. The engines have been replaced in two and a third is scheduled to have its engine replaced, CATA Executive Director Jarod Varner said.
The proposed budget also comes as the agency is developing a strategic plan to help boost ridership and perhaps draw up a plan to become a self-funded agency that no longer will have to rely on contributions from Pulaski County, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle. Those governments will have to approve the new CATA budget.
Bentley Wallace, a CATA board member from North Little Rock, called the proposed 2015 budget "realistic" and "conservative" for "an agency going through a lot of major initiatives."
While the proposed raises might be a "difficult pill to swallow" for the cities and county, Wallace argued they would be offset by the benefits they would gain under the agency's initiatives.
Darrell Brown, a board member from Sherwood, also backed the proposed budget. "We should at least give it a shot and throw it out to the cities" to consider.
But Sarah Lenehan, a board member and finance director for Little Rock, expressed worry that her Board of Directors would be reluctant to support a CATA budget that provides raises when the city's nonuniformed employees might go without raises next year.
"I honestly don't know how that discussion will go," she said.
Varner called 2015 a "pivotal year," given the major initiatives his agency is rolling out and, as such, "staff morale should be as high as possible.
"We would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we don't move forward with a sensible increase," he said.
The 3 percent raises would go to the 155 employees who are union members -- bus drivers, mechanics and paratransit employees. Raises for the 45 administrative staff members are based on performance and their 3 percent is the "cumulative total in the budget," according to Wanda Crawford, the agency's chief financial officer.
Metro on 10/02/2014