Agenda Item # 8
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Date: |
May 25, 2006 |
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Committee Meeting Date: |
June 7, 2006 |
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Board Meeting Date: |
N/A |
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ACTION
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DISCUSSION
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| INFO
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BOARD MEMORANDUM
| TO: |
Committee for Transit Accessibility |
| | Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority |
| | Board of Directors |
| | | | THROUGH: | Michael T. Burns |
| | General Manager |
| | | | FROM: | Roger Contreras |
| | Chief Financial Officer |
| | |
| SUBJECT: |
National Transit Database (NTD) Reporting and Paratransit Services |
At the April 2006 CTA meeting, Member Randy Tamez requested staff to submit a report on the costs associated with Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) Paratransit Program as reported to NTD.
BACKGROUND:
Transit Agencies that are recipients of Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) Urbanized Formula Program funds are required to file the first draft of their annual report to NTD each October for the previous fiscal year’s activity. Because this deadline conflicts with the completion of the annual financial audit, at the time of filing, both NTD and VTA are aware that the report is based on unaudited data. After completion of the audit, VTA updates the NTD Report to reflect audited financial information. During the next several months, NTD and VTA work together reviewing the Report. Depending on issues or questions raised by either party, the report is eventually finalized, usually 9-10 months after its original submission.
NTD periodically changes reporting requirements both generally to all public agencies and specifically to individual agencies. NTD required the following changes in previous years:
In Fiscal Year 2002,
- Changed the reporting process requiring all public agencies to include the purchased services costs in their Report
- Required VTA to report administrative costs related to the Outreach contract as part of VTA’s Paratransit Program cost
In Fiscal Year 2004,
- Required VTA to allocate its General and Administrative (G&A) overhead costs to each of its transit modes. VTA’s G&A costs are derived from the Indirect Cost Allocation Plan (ICAP), which has been submitted to and approved by FTA. In summary these costs include allocations from:
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VTA’s administrative departments such as General Manager’s Office, General Counsel, Fiscal Resources, Technology, and Administrative Services/Human Resources departments
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Costs of facilities and their operations, etc.
DISCUSSION:
In his email of April 20, 2006, Member Tamez expressed concern that the costs reported to NTD and to MTC may be considerably higher than those reported to VTA from the Broker due to direct and overhead costs being added to the Broker costs. He questioned a $5M discrepancy caused by the accounting approach used in 2005 and requested a discussion on the details and methods used for calculating the direct and overhead calculations with supporting documents. Another concern raised by Member Tamez is that Accessible Services Department’s staff time is spent on matters pertaining to Operations activities other than Paratransit and being allocated to the Paratransit budget.
As previously noted, NTD specifically requires costs other than just the “broker’s” cost be included in total paratransit costs.
The FY2005 report is still in draft form and being reviewed by NTD staff. As such, no final report has been published by either VTA or NTD at this time. However, the following schedule reflects the most current amounts in the Draft FY2005 NTD report:
Purchased Transportation Services $26,287,663
Accessible Services Department $ 1,094,310
Operations Administration Department $ 270,291
G&A Overhead Allocations $ 2,479,309
TOTAL PARATRANSIT SERVICES COSTS $30,131,573
When compared to the final FY2004 report, the total costs for the Paratransit Services are $4.2 million less in FY2005. Major factors for the estimated lower costs are:
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Purchased Transportation contract costs experienced a reduction of $1.5M as a result of reductions in contractor charges and other efficiencies.
- Accessible Services Department’s charges were reduced by $1.6M. Fiscal Year 2005 is the first year in which this department’s activities could be tracked according to each transit mode. Therefore, only the portion related to Paratransit Services has been included as part of this year’s costs. In FY2004, the entire Accessible Services costs were reported under Paratransit Services.
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G&A overhead allocation is reduced by $1.1M in FY2005. During NTD & VTA’s review process for FY2005 a duplicate posting was discovered. The posting correction in FY2005 results in a reduction in cost when compared to FY2004.
Costs are classified as direct and indirect as applicable by OMB Circular 4 A-87’s guidelines.
1)Direct Costs are costs that can be identified specifically to a particular cost objective.
EXAMPLES:
1)i.Contractual costs with Outreach
ii.Accessible Services Department
iii.Allocation of Operations Administration cost distributed on a pro-rata basis to all transit modes
2)Indirect Costs include cost allocations from General Manager’s Office, General Counsel, Administrative Services, Fiscal Resources, Development and Marketing that are necessary to conduct paratransit activities. The cost in these areas represents allocations of labor, supplies, utilities, cost of operating the facilities, etc. This is done by applying an overhead rate to the Direct Costs mentioned in #1 above.
Accessible Services Department staff provide support for programs related to all transit modes. The allocations from Accessible Services Department to paratransit services are directly related to those services and do not include any costs for services provided to other transit modes.
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