CMRTA Board Agrees to City, County Stipulations

The Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority board agreed Thursday to conditions set by the city and the county in exchange for funds to keep buses running through September. 

As part of the deal, the board announced the hiring of a CPA firm to conduct an audit of the CMRTA's finances. Board chair Joyce Dickerson said she is working on selecting committee members to choose an executive director. 

In exchange, the CMRTA will receive $950,000 from the City of Columbia and $417,000 from Richland County to keep the buses running through September. 

The CMRTA board also agreed to begin the restructuring of the board, something Dickerson said is essential to solving CMRTA's problems.

"I'm very much in favor of, at this point in time, closing out the books on the CMRTA as it's currently constructed and reconstructing it," Dickerson said.

"I would like us to go into our new fiscal year with a newly formed CMRTA and start it with a new board or either put it under the city's operation and management. I think there are too many trying to operate it." 

An intergovernmental agreement between the city, Richland County and Lexington County on how to operate CMRTA ended June 30. Since then, the three governments have not formed another one. 

Dickerson, who is also a member of Richland County Council, said the board made several attempts to try to get the three financial supporters of CMRTA to reach an agreement in advance. Eventually, time ran out. 

"When the treasurer and myself discovered that our bills exceeded our finances, we made an urgent plea that we could no longer write any checks without having any financial support," Dickerson said. 

Dickerson also said CMRTA may get more than $600,000 in federal money that would help cover operational costs this fiscal year. However, that money is usually used for capital projects though, not operations, she said. The CMRTA has made a special request to use the funding for operations.

"Whether or not (the funds) will be released is totally up to the Federal Transit Authority," Dickerson said.