CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield County Commissioners have serious concerns with the operations of the Area Transportation Authority (ATA) and last week submitted a formal Right-to-Know request in search of answers.
Commissioner Chairperson Joan Robinson-McMillen requested a detailed budget from the ATA via e-mail on June 3. Her e-mail wasn’t answered. As a result, she authorized County Solicitor Kim Kesner to prepare a Right-to-Know request seeking the following ATA documents:
- Budgets (general and special) for all operations of the ATA and inclusive for each of the past five fiscal years.
- Meeting minutes and or enacting resolutions evidencing the adoption of the budget for each of the past five fiscal years.
- Annual report(s) filed in accordance with Section 5612 of the Municipality Authorities Act with the Department of Community and Economic Development for the past five fiscal years.
- Annual audit reports (prepared by a certified public accountant) required by Section 5612 of the Municipality Authorities Act for the past five fiscal years.
- Meeting minutes and or enacting resolutions authorizing special non-budgeted appropriations and or budget amendments during the past five fiscal years.
Kesner said the ATA had not responded to the Right-to-Know request as of Wednesday’s meeting. However, he said the ATA had five, business days to respond, which expires with the close of business on Thursday.
He said if the ATA doesn’t send its response within five, business days the request is deemed as denied. In that case, he said the commissioners could appeal to the Office of Open Records in Harrisburg.
The ATA is a regional, rural transportation authority for the counties of Cameron, Clearfield, Elk, Jefferson, McKean and Potter. Clearfield County contracts with the ATA to provide mass transit throughout the county, except for DuBois City, parts of Sandy Township and Falls Creek Borough. For those areas, it contracts with DuFast Transit.
According to Robinson-McMillen, the county appoints three board members to the ATA who are Anthony Viglone and Kristin Vida, both of DuBois, and Ernie Carns of Clearfield. She said the county also paid an appropriation of $113,019 to the ATA for the current-year.
Last week Robinson-McMillen pointed out that the county’s appropriation represents 47.6 percent of the ATA’s local match allocation. In other words, she said it paid nearly 50 percent of the local match when six counties belong to the ATA.
Robinson-McMillen said the county also paid $14,364 to DuFast Transit to which DuBois City and Sandy Township give about the same amount. She said Falls Creek contributes a lesser amount but is a much smaller municipality. Robinson-McMillen said there is more “equal representation” with DuFast Transit.
Over the years, she said the current board of commissioners has experienced “some real difficulties and concerns” with the ATA. When meeting for purposes of budget discussion, she said the ATA either refuses to supply the commissioners with information, or provides them with information that isn’t completely transparent.
Robinson-McMillen said they have all pledged to continue supplying citizens of Clearfield County with mass transit. However, she said it’s the county’s fiduciary responsibility to utilize the best service that is the most cost effective.
She said the state’s Department of Transportation, which oversees the ATA, also has concerns about the ATA and its budget. In fact, she said the ATA’s current-year budget wasn’t approved until recently when most are looking into the upcoming-year’s budget.
According to Robinson-McMillen, the county received notice that the ATA would be voting on its 2014 budget. About one month ago, she had Chief Clerk Lisa McFadden request a copy of the ATA budget proposal for review before the annual meeting. Robinson-McMillen said the budget wasn’t ready and ATA blamed PennDOT for “holding it up.”
She said a day before the ATA budget would be voted upon, she requested a copy. This time she was told they didn’t have the budget even though the ATA board would be voting on it the next day. She eventually received a one-and-a-half page budget summary the afternoon before the annual meeting, which Commissioner John A. Sobel likened more to a listing of “assets and liabilities.”
Robinson-McMillen and Sobel went to the ATA’s office in Johnsonburg to attend the annual meeting. At the meeting, she said Vida went through the board packet after asking numerous times for them to be sent out in advance. Robinson-McMillen said Vida was advised that “wasn’t how it was done” and board members were expected to show up and vote upon items that they hadn’t seen.
“They (ATA) admitted to refusing to send out information to the board members ahead of time. Keep in mind, this isn’t an advisory board; this is a governing board,” said Robinson-McMillen.
At the meeting, she said the ATA announced the 2014 budget had already been submitted to PennDOT. She said the ATA called for a vote on its budget the day after it had been submitted. She said Vida didn’t so much as have a budget summary for her review and requested to see the budget, which the ATA never provided to her.
Sobel said the ATA also denied Vida the opportunity to ask and get answers for a series of questions she had concerning the budget. Robinson-McMillen said board members voted to accept the budget as presented by the committee, except for Vida, as she wasn’t afforded the opportunity to review it.
Robinson-McMillen said they plan to continue investigating the possibility of moving their Act 44 and transportation funding to DuFast Transit. She said DuFast Transit has been positively reviewed by PennDOT for its services to the communities of DuBois City, Sandy Township and Falls Creek.
Sobel said the ATA board approved a budget resolution for 2013-14 that totaled $9,638,878 without having an actual, physical document and all of the components in front of them. When he and Robinson-McMillen confronted the ATA about this, Sobel said they received two responses.
Sobel said the ATA blamed the state, saying everything was “fine,” and “we know what we’re doing.” He also confirmed that Vida had been denied the opportunity to review the budget and to ask her questions. Sobel said when the county is paying an entity $113,000, it expects accountability and transparency.
Sobel supported the county in continuing to look for other ways to provide better mass transit to the citizens of Clearfield County. In its latest performance review, he said PennDOT had indicated DuFast Transit demonstrated sound fiscal management due to their regular accumulation of year-end cash reserves, having no debt and no unfunded liability. Sobel said that tells him they run efficiently as an operation.
“Anytime the individuals or organizations think that they have limited responsibilities to those that fund them, it’s time to start looking elsewhere,” he said. Commissioner Mark B. McCracken agreed, noting a lot of state and federal money was involved and Clearfield County was the biggest contributor of the member counties.
“The detailed budget should be released to the board members. It should be released to the member counties,” said McCracken. “I’m talking a detailed budget. I’m talking a budget that will show everything that’s being spent, salaries – everything. These board members aren’t being afforded this detail and being asked to vote on a budget based on a very brief summary.”
McCracken said they’re searching for the alternatives out there with the bottom line being transparency and making sure they’re getting the best use of their dollars.
Robinson-McMillen said she showed the county budget to the ATA as an example and requested a similar line-by-line budget, including salary line items, from the ATA. At that point, she was told it was in separate budgets that could be provided to her. She followed up June 3 in an e-mail with a read receipt to the ATA’s fiscal officer. It was received by 1 p.m. the same day but wasn’t acknowledged by the ATA.
“That’s really not best service,” said Robinson-McMillen.
Last week she said the commissioners would continue to thoroughly investigate their concerns and not act quickly on this matter. She said they do not want the citizens of Clearfield County to experience any break in services, just a more efficient and transparent provider.
