City Council approves TRPTA funds to pay laid-off employees

Public transportation in Eastern Idaho cities, such as Idaho Falls and Rexburg, came to an abrupt end last week, and the employees have still not been paid.

The Idaho Falls City Council voted 6-0 on Monday evening to approve funds for a local match for the Targhee Regional Public Transportation Authority, or TRPTA. It shut down last week due to a lack of funds. The city had been paying TRPTA $35,000 each quarter, or $140,000 each year. But the council voted to withhold the payment in April due to a concern of sanctions from the Federal Transit Authority. The FTA lifted some of those sanctions, so the City Council voted to release the funds. The FTA will make an 80 percent to 20 percent match covering the outstanding payroll, with the FTA paying 80 percent and the city of Idaho Falls paying the other 20 percent.

“We want to make sure that the payroll requests are accurate so that every dollar is spent appropriately,” said Dave Radford, acting chairman of the TRPTA board. “So this is a good vote for the employees of TRPTA.”

There is also concern over other debts that TRPTA owes. Idaho Falls City Councilwoman Michelle Ziel-Dingman, who is on the TRPTA board, says TRPTA owes $185,000 in two lines of credit and at least $15,000 in other debts, and potentially more. It owes about $90,000 to $100,000 in payroll. It currently has $11,000 in the bank.

“Working with the Federal Transit Authority, we think there are some assets that will have to be looked at,” Radford said. “Everything’s on the table. But we want to make sure that the taxpayers are protected, too, so we’re going to be very careful about that.”

Now that TRPTA is closed, officials will next have to figure out what to do for future public transportation.

“I think that’s a decision that the partners have to make about what does public transportation look like in the future for Eastern Idaho,” Radford said. “Right now, if we can do the best we can by everyone, then we’ll just see what the city, the various folks that need the service, what their input is.”

It is still not clear when employees will get paid. That is up to the Federal Transit Authority.

The council still has one quarterly $35,000 payment left in its budget, but will decide at a later date if it will use it for TRPTA. Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper suggested waiting to do that until July because the city would be paying TRPTA for services it did not give the city.