The California Legislature enacted the Transportation Development Act (TDA) of 1971 to improve existing public transportation services and encourage regional transportation coordination. Caltrans administers the TDA through each county’s regional transportation planning agency. As the regional transportation planning agency for Monterey County, the Transportation Agency is responsible for administering the county’s TDA funds, which includes authorizing funding to local transportation agencies for the purposes outlined in the TDA, and conducting an annual unmet transit needs assessment.
The Transportation Development Act provides two major sources for funding of public transportation in California. The first, the Local Transportation Fund is derived from a ¼ cent of the general sales tax collected statewide. The second, the State Transit Assistance (STA) fund is derived from the statewide sales tax on diesel fuel.
TAMC submits transit performance audits to the state every three years pursuant to the Transportation Development Act (TDA). The performance audits evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness, as defined in the Caltrans Performance Audit Guidebook, of Monterey-Salinas Transit, which is the county’s sole public transit provider, and TAMC, which serves as the Local Transportation Fund administrator. Generally, the audits review each operator’s financial and operating reports to determine compliance with state operating requirements. The audit determines compliance with administrative requirements, including timely submittal of required financial documentation, farebox recovery requirements, and a review of operating costs among other indicators. Any recommendations to correct findings identified in the audits, or for improvements needed by each operator to enhance the performance and cost-effectiveness of their respective transit services must be implemented in the next three-year audit period.
TAMC contracted with Michael Baker International in August 2016 to prepare the performance audits. Copies of the complete audits are available for review as Web Attachments to this report. The audit findings and recommendations are summarized below.
Transportation Development Act Compliance:
Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST): fully complied with all nine applicable state requirements for transit operators. These requirements include: timely submittals of annual reports and fiscal audits to the State Controller and to TAMC, annual CHP inspections and maintaining a farebox recovery ratio of more than 15%.
Transportation Agency for Monterey County: complied with applicable state legislative requirements for regional transportation planning agencies. These requirements include: adopting rules and regulations for the use of TDA funds, maintaining a citizens participation process, and timely submittals of fiscal audits to the State Controller.
Recommendations:
The auditors commended TAMC for developing in-house TDA Guidelines and recommended that TAMC clarify the required farebox recovery ratio for MST. Pursuant to SB 508, the auditors also recommend clarifying the calculation of the farebox recovery ratio to determine the eligibility of using State Transit Assistance funds for operations.
TAMC expects to implement the recommendations to improve administration and management related to TDA in 2017/18 by making amendments to the Agency's TDA Guidelines that incorporate the performance audit's recommendations.