King County Councilmember questions Metro Transit ‘candor’, competence

The King County Council’s vote Monday to postpone two rounds of planned Metro Transit cuts next year has KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson again calling agency brass “liars.”

The Council voted to table the cuts planned as part of a massive service reduction to cover big revenue shortfalls. It turns out the shortfalls are far less than the agency said when it pushed a failed ballot measure earlier this year.

“We were lied to in 2005, we were lied to in this last campaign. Why should we ever vote for an agency that consistently lies to us the voters?” Dori asked King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski, the chair of the Transportation committee, in an interview Tuesday.

Dembowski, who supported the April ballot measure to raise the sales tax and car tab fees to fund Metro, defended the agency’s initial dire revenue projections.

“What I do believe, is at the time they were the best numbers they had and they represented Metro’s best thinking,” said Dembowski.

Dembowski is far from defending the agency now. He sponsored Monday’s measure that halted the further cuts until the Council completes work on a new, two-year budget.

“What has happened at the King County Council is some of us stood up and said we need to work on reforms, we need to work on efficiencies, identify savings and take advantage of the growing economy,” he said.

Dembowski told Dori he plans to introduce new legislation this week that would create a permanent, independent Metro auditor who keeps an eye on finances and operations, “to make sure we are squeezing all the efficiency,” he said.

The auditor would report to the Council and community.

Dembowski said the proposal stems in large part from his increasing distrust of Metro Transit leadership in recent months. He said he believes the agency used outdated revenue numbers to justify further cuts and paint a more dire picture than was really happening.

“Metro needs to be better and I’m not satisfied with where they are today,” he said. “I do have some real questions about Metro’s candor and forthrightness about these recent numbers.”

Dori was much harsher in his criticism of the agency.

“If we’ve got bad people running Metro I don’t think we should trust them with more of our money until a house cleaning happens there,” Dori responded.

In an email to KIRO Radio, Metro’s Jeff Switzer said that “since spring, we’ve been talking about unanticipated sales tax revenue forecast by OEFA (King’s County’s Office of Economic and Financial Analysis, an independent county agency), and Metro accounted for those when we reduced the cuts figure from 600,000 (hours) to 550,000 (hours). We’ve talked about not wanting to be burned by rosy projections.”

Switzer says a newly projected revenue surplus of $280 million into 2018 is part of the county executive’s proposed two-year budget.

“Those forecasts are for money that doesn’t exist yet — both near-term and in later years — and don’t account for any possible economic downturn,” said Switzer.