“With this challenge, this could give us the opportunity for other funding sources we couldn’t have if we were taking state money,” said Chair Ronnie Duncan. According to Duncan, the veto does not represent a $900,000 savings. “That money goes back into the trust fund and sits there,” he said.
That state money was expected to last about two years. TBARTA has used about $1.1 million in three and a half years.
“I think we’ve been good stewards of that money,” said Frank Hibbard, chair of the legislative committee.
“The challenge for us in the finance committee … will be how do we continue to take care of our mission, to figure out where we can cut and save,” said board member Hugh E. McGuire, “to live within the budget we have.”
McGuire said the committee was exploring cost-saving options like outsourcing accounting, and that it hoped to bring its recommendations to the board at the next meeting.
The funding cut does not mean TBARTA will give up on its mission, the board said.
“We’ll see a new model. We’ve got to make some changes,” Duncan said. “We’ll continue to move forward.”
The board will present its master plan during a public hearing on June 24. Consultant Cassandra Ecker gave an overview of some aspects of the plan: refining the adopted transit network, adding freight and roadway networks, addressing air quality, land use and traffic congestion, and public outreach.
Email comments and comments from other public meetings show public interest in a light rail, better connections to airports, and safety.
“We get a lot of questions about how can we do this incrementally,” Ecker said. “There are concerns about how we should do this on a regional basis.”
Board member Nora Patterson expressed concern about the lack of corridors going south past downtown Sarasota connecting Route 41 and I-75.
“It seems like it has been from the very beginning a big hole in our area,” she said. “With no regional mapped link between I-75 where it seems the major corridor is and 41, 20 years out you’ve got a big hole.”
Duncan said the master plan is “not a static document, it is a fluid document,” and must be updated every two years.
“What we’re talking about is a vision, it’s not tomorrow, not necessarily this decade,” said Executive Director Robert Clifford. “We have to incrementally step through what that vision is.”
