Looking over Pace, RTA travel expenses
If you want to see how thrifty a company is, dig into their travel and expense reports.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I looked at Pace and RTA expenses for the first six months of 2009 with one question in mind: How frugal are they?
The soft economy has decimated sales taxes, the main source for transit funding. The RTA, which has financial authority over Pace, Metra and the CTA, predicts tough times in the future.
Pace currently is contemplating cutting or reducing more than 50 bus routes - a step that could hurt those who rely on public transit to get to work. And, it's also considering raising fares for paratransit, the ride service for people with disabilities.
So in this time of economic stress, are Pace and the RTA pinching pennies?
Not so much, it appears, but you can decide. Group educational trips, cabs to O'Hare, driving to public transit meetings and posh hotels were among the expenses that jumped off the lists of reimbursed bills.
• BRT junket to LA. Eight people - two RTA directors and three RTA planners plus two Pace directors and one administrator went to Los Angeles in March to study bus rapid transit, a concept long supported by both agencies.
Costs for air travel averaged about $293 a person. The delegation stayed at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel for two nights with rooms around $146 a night per person.
A smaller delegation of Pace and RTA officials also flew to Toronto in late March and stayed in downtown hotels for a second BRT educational trip.
• Taxis. The RTA loves them. In the box of documents I reviewed, catching a cab to O'Hare was a regular occurrence. There's also instances of RTA employees taking taxis around Chicago with its plethora of buses and trains; one invoice was $39.55 for cabs within the downtown including a trip to a meeting about congestion.
Another employee expensed $61 for taxis while in Washington, D.C., which has a great transit system.
• Cars. Both transit agencies use them a lot. Records show four RTA directors - Pat Durante of Addison, Judy Baar Topinka of Riverside, Patrick Riley of Schaumburg and Michael Scott of Chicago - billed the agency for parking and mileage to meetings. Directors are paid a $25,000 annual stipend. "For the first six years I served on the RTA, I never presented a receipt until I retired," said Durante, adding he paid out-of-pocket for transportation until retiring in 2007.
One RTA employee billed $773 for mileage to drive his personal car to Washington to meet congressional staff.
At Pace, frequently, workers get mileage reimbursements for driving to meetings off-site instead of taking transit.
Pace Executive Director T.J. Ross also uses a company car to travel to RTA meetings in Chicago and expenses parking costs.
• Hotels. The preferred hotels are high-end for both agencies. Names like Hilton and Marriott crop up on invoices instead of Days Inn and Super 8 (my luxury hotel of choice).
When visiting Springfield to meet legislators, one Pace official stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn for one night for $166. An American Public Transportation Association conference in Los Angeles meant $249 rooms at the oceanfront Loews Beach Hotel.
The RTA's top bill was $572 for a night at the Embassy Suites in Washington, D.C., where Chairman Jim Reilly stayed. Officials often stay in hotels with rates higher than $200 a night.
• Meals. The RTA does a lot of working lunches that are expensed, including one $104.09 meal at trendy Opera for four people. (In comparison, some companies are scaling back annual parties, such as one whose summer barbecue for employees was changed to a pizza lunch where attendees pitched in $3 a piece. Talk about thrifty.)
• Eye-catchers. No. 1 was a $176.50 invoice for "payment for chaperones and kids to visit the Sears Tower" as part of Bring Your Child to Work Day.
Second, a get-well card for a Pace director.
Third was the RTA with a $1,097 flight to Washington, D.C., to lobby congressmen.
Fourth, $9 expensed by an RTA staffer for a New Yorker magazine.
Terry Pastika, executive director of the Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst, said it's important for agencies like Pace and the RTA to attend conferences and learn about transit innovations.
But in these days of layoffs and furlough days, "everyone is making sacrifices," she said. "When you see excess expenditures, it raises skepticism about how these government agencies are operating. Do you have to stay at the Hilton? Do you have to send eight people to Los Angeles?"
As for the taxis and driving, "that's just ironic," Pastika said. "Why one set of rules for the public and one for the public agency?"
RTA response
RTA officials say they reduced their travel and business expenses from $184,000 to $139,000 this year.
"We're on an austerity budget," Executive Director Steve Schlickman said.
Regarding taxis, Schlickman said it's company policy for employees to use public transit whenever possible and he recently reminded staff of that after noticing an increase in taxi receipts. "It's transit first, unless it's an inefficient use of time," he said.
Because staff are issued transit cards, records will not show the number of times they take the CTA, he said.
Regarding the BRT trip, Schlickman said "we do not have bus rapid transit in the region. Anytime you are trying to introduce a mode of transportation, you had better know what you're buying and those making the decisions should know what they're talking about."
The $572 hotel bill and $1,097 flights were because of a meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called at short notice, which raised the price along with the fact a major convention was in town, RTA spokeswoman Diane Palmer said.
The agency uses hotels such as the Hilton because they offer superior business services to bargain hotels and are more centrally located, which reduces travel expenses, officials said.
The $773 mileage bill was a result of an employee combining a personal and business trip to Washington during President Obama's inauguration at which time flights were comparably priced because of demand, officials said.
As far as the Sears Tower trip, the agency annually sets aside money for the Take Your Kids to Work Day and the visit was coupled with tours of transit, Schlickman said.
Pace reaction
Pace spokesman Patrick Wilmot stressed that the paratransit budget and suburban bus budget are separate. "There is no relationship between paratransit fares and travel expenses," he said in an e-mail.
Overall, Pace budgeted $77,375 for travel in 2009, which would be insufficient to operate paratransit for less than six hours, he said.
Pace eliminated all discretionary expenses in April, requiring that out-of-region travel be approved by top administrators to ensure it's essential. The Pace board is considering cutting $3 million in non-service expenses in 2010 including travel, Wilmot said.
With the BRT trip, "to invest coach, round-trip airfare and hotel expenses to learn from an industry peer that has already implemented this type of service and freely offered their experience to us is a very small price to pay given the potential investment of tens of millions of dollars of combined capital and operating expenses to bring BRT to our service area," he said.
Regarding mileage, Wilmot said, the agency prioritizes using public transit and staff have bus passes that are well-used. Sometimes travel from the suburbs to Chicago or from suburb to suburb will consume too much time to be practical and that's when employees drive or carpool, he explained. Wilmot added it takes 90 minutes to get from the Pace offices to Chicago using transit and in certain situations, a car is more cost-effective.
With hotels, Pace typically uses the ones recommended by convention organizers but encourages staff to shop around for better rates. Staying at the hotel where a conference or training session is scheduled saves rental car or taxi costs and is safer, Wilmot said. In the Springfield Hilton example, rates were high because it was during the legislative session, but Pace's presence there helped secure capital dollars for bus service and paratransit.