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Good move and hopefully a fresh start for when we get past this awful pandemic.
IndyGo is another inefficiently run government entity. During the pandemic, private companies are controlling their real estate costs and maintaining social distancing by requiring employees to work remotely. But IndyGo spends $3M to purchase more real estate. They are allowed to continue to spend money they don’t have.
Or a great strategic move to purchase a real estate asset at a discounted price. Furthermore, I doubt many of IndyGo’s employees have the luxury of working from home. Kinda hard to fix a bus from the comfort of your own couch.
I call this forwarding thinking and it gives the system a central and east location, which could go a long way in creating efficiencies.
They didn’t borrow the money. They used cash they had on hand to purchase the property. And, they got an excellent deal. The property was assessed at almost $7 million, and they paid less than half that. Moreover, IndyGo needs the additional space for their bus fleet, maintenance, and administration. Plenty of private businesses have continued to make capital investments this year. Aside from your general disdain for any government entity, do you have any concrete and substantiated reasons to provide why IndyGo should not have purchased the property?
A complaint just for the purpose of complaining
Transit tax collection is expected to drop 10% next year and then again in 2022. Passenger revenue, which accounts for 10% of IndyGo operating revenue is estimated to drop to 5% as ridership declines. “We could have a gap of over $30 million,” IndyGo CFO Bart Brown told board members at a July 27 meeting. The Indianapolis Public Transportation Foundation has raised $70,527 since receiving not-for-profit status in June 2019. But under the law passed in 2014, it’s supposed to be raising at least $6 million in private donations per year.
Under the current circumstances I don’t think they should be spending money. There will be additional costs for design and renovation of the property too. Perhaps they need maintenance facilities, but I question the need for additional office/admin space at this time.
The transit law passed in 2014 needs to be amended to eliminate the private fundraising requirement. No other public transit system relies on private fundraising for a major portion of its budget. And, even before the pandemic with the most aggressive fundraising efforts, there was never any possible chance in hell IndyGo would raise anywhere close to $6 million a year in private contributions. Why? Because no corporation or charitable foundation or philanthropist is going to donate to a public entity to run a freaking bus system when they will rightfully assume it is a government function that should be fully paid for by tax dollars and fares. “Let’s see, should I donate to the Red Cross, the local food bank, the art museum, or the bus system? Oh, gee, decisions, decisions…” It is long past time for the General Assembly to get out of local affairs, and let local government and its residents decide for themselves how they wish to spend their local tax dollars.
As for the short-fall in passenger revenue, it is an issue every transit system in the country is facing. And, hopefully, Congress will finally due the right thing and help state and local governments, including transit agencies (there is actually some money allocated in the new stimulus bill that is in limbo), with support during this economic crisis. Only the federal government has the ability to print money, and a downturn is the exact time to start printing it and handing it out. In any event, a need is still a need, and a good deal is still a good deal. The old Celadon site was a bargain, and since IndyGo had the cash to buy it, it made sense to purchase it, rather than let the opportunity slip away. And, most of the site will be used for maintenance and fleet storage, and it is already designed for it since Celadon used a large portion of the property for that purpose.