What Sound Transit Is Not Telling Us

 The Sound Transit Board waited until August 11th to release the  "2020 Sound Transit Annual Report" and September 23rd to release the "2020 Fare Revenue Report".  They've yet to include any "Quarterly Financial Performance Reports" for 2021 on their list of "Financial Documents".  They've clearly been reticent in providing residents with up-to-date financial status.

Thus it's unclear what or when their response will be to Sound Transit's 10-21-21 presentation of a 13-page Q3 Financial report entitled "CFO Report" to the Board's Finance and Audit Committee.  It included YTD comparisons through August of tax revenue, ridership, fare revenue, and operating expense with budget predictions.

Tax revenue exceeded budget by 28% and operating costs were 6% less than budget.  However, ridership was 39% below budget and fare revenue, 50% less than budget.  Clearly Sound Transit failed to provide the Board with accurate budget estimates for ridership and farebox revenue.

The revenue shortfall is reflected in lower farebox recovery for all the transit modes.  The CFO cites Sound Transit  recovery policy targets as 40% for Link, 23% for Sounder, and 20% for STX.  Sound Transit's "2021 Financial Plan and Adopted Budget" predicted 15%, 13%, and 15% for the three modes.

Their 2021 budget predictions, far less than Sound Transit policy targets, still provided only 2% of 2021 budget's revenues.  The CFO's 2021 August YTD farebox recovery for the Link, 6%, Sounder, 4%, and STX, 6%, were fractions not only of Sound Transit targets, but 2021 budget predictions.  

The bottom line is the Sound Transit Board has been reticent in releasing financial reports.  The CFO Report shows the August YTD farebox recovery for the transit modes not only failed to meet target levels, they failed to meet Sound Transit predictions for pandemic's affect on 2021 budget.  

The CFO report was presumably a subject in the October 28th Sound Transit Board meeting.  It's unclear their response as the Board has gone from not providing a video of the meetings to having them "off-air".  It raises the question "What is it that Sound Transit is not telling us?".  It's something a competent Seattle Times Traffic Lab would "dig into" but hasn't.