renoGood morning folks. It's Friday and we're watching the BiState Operations & Finance meetings today. You can follow long in this thread, or watch live at https://facebook.com/bistatedev
I came in just a tad late and missed minutes approval, but the first agenda item is talking about renting out parts of the St. Louis Downtown Airport that aren't being used/need repair (this is the airport right over the river in Illinois)
They've just been mentioning all of the small properties around the airport and how much they're going to make off of them if rented.
Next up: Contract Time Extension for the downtown tunnel.
Sounds like getting track time was the limiting factor, so they're asking for another year on the construction phase of this contract.
Starting in September, Middle/3rd quarter 2024 is the ETA for finishing. Sounds like it'll just be weekend single tracking when that happens.
Next up, a new contract proposal with WSP USA, which would be an on call engineering firm.
Contract is 3 years, with two option years, for no more than $5 million.
Next up: a contract for more on-call services. Very similar to the previous item.
That approved via voice vote. This past one was 3 contracts rolled up into one, which is odd.
A bigger item next up: awarding a project management consulting contract for N/S MetroLink! It's for $18.9 million. As I understand, this is helping construct a bid for federal funding.
Taulby Roach mentions that this is a City of St. Louis project - entirely paid for by City of St. Louis funds.
Next up: a contract proposal for tire replacement/refurbishment. Only one firm submitted, which is Bridgestone. Contract is for ~$4m, coming from the operating budget.
Passed w/ a voice vote.
Next up: a contract for bus cleaning at the Illinois Metro depot.
This one is w/ Innex Service Co, 5 years, ~2m, from the operating budget.
Passed w/ a voice vote.
More contracts: a modification with our existing contract for track repair.
Contract started in 2021, but Main St., 4th Street & a third grade grossing would be getting fixed with this modification. Until Dec 31st 2024, for ~$6m. Funding provided by FTA Grants, Prop M & St. Clair County transit funds.
Comissioner Simmons asked if this information had been sent to St. Clair County, and Tom Curran (the one proposing the contract) mentions he's not sure. Simmons is holding his vote until we find out if St. Clair Transit knows this is a thing.
Next up: a contract modification for LRV brake calipers. Sounds like a good number of the MetroLink rolling stop got calipers fixed, but this is for the rest of the vehicles. Calipers have a one year lead time, so they're trying to get that started now.
Over 4 years, $800,000. The current contract holder is the original manufacturers of the brake calipers, neat.
Chair Windmiller is asking how this system will look when we have new LRV stock - will there only be one company who can repair brakes?
Taulby Roach mentions that concern is one of the reasons they're trying to upgrade is because newer vehicles are using a more common frame that more companies can service.
We're back to talking about the grade crossing repair: sounds like they're not going to vote on it until the full Board of Commissioners meeting, so that they can confirm that St. Clair County knows about the crossings.
We're having a fun parlipro moment about whether or not that agenda item got tabled or not.
That's all for the official business, now we're on to the workforce & operations report.
Overall boardings are up around 6%. Notable number is Call-A-Ride boardings went down by 16% after they cut service big time there (that was done to lower the amount of Call-A-Ride denials that were happening earlier in the year)
Nov: 5% service rate reduction, 3.5% in April (?), other two service changes were shifting times. Stewart is mentioning he thinks this is as much reduction as we need for now.
Current service level requires 547 operators, we're at 533. Some miss trips going to happen as a result.
Getting to the point where they can "regroup" and think about the "Metro of the future"
"Hiring people is one thing, keeping them is another". Also mentions the new $5k bonus that's gone into effect.
They've got a re-hire program going, offering jobs to folks who left 2-3 years ago.
Also working on hiring younger - 18 y/o with CDL, although Stewart mentions that there are some issues getting them to work inter-state.
Now talking about the new ratified contract with the driver's union - mentions how it's going to help both recruitment & retention now that the contract is in place.
Commissioner Cox asks what the percentage ridership that we lost in COVID - we lost 20% initially. 13 million riders -> 6 million riders this past year.
Here's a table of the current hiring numbers: 32.19% shortage of MetroBus, 19.60% for MetroLink, 42.78% for Call-A-Ride.
Commisioner Cox asks if there's a specific spot they need help recruiting in, talking about job fairs - Stewart mentions they're hiring *everything*, but that MetroBus is the main focus.
Cox follows up and asks what the hangups are for folks applying - Stewart mentions that a background check & drug test loses some folks. Also mentions how training is getting cleaned up to offer more support to new hires.
Mentions that it might take *15 years* to get out of working nights/weekends, which is a concern for new folks.
They're starting to try and do incentives for certain routes/certain shifts. (this was a part of the new union contract, fwiw)
Chair Windmiller is asking about Q4 numbers and why they were down - asking if we've done and studies or something like that.
(my stream cut out for a bit here but will update if there was something important here)
Comments from the CEO now.
"focused not just on one thing, but focused on all things"
New job events are happening soon - next one Sept 9th, in Westport.
"We are just treading water, folks"
Sept 5th - first contract being put out for SPP (this is turnstiles + cameras on platforms). Gates have been ordered. $10.7 mil in private investor money.
As a reminder, phase 1 will be 4 stations in Illinois.
New bus plan is being worked on - hopefully will have details on that soon.
Okay, Operations is wrapping up. We'll start the Audit, Finance & Admin meeting next.
Oh geez, we have 12 different agenda items for this meeting. I've posted this on notes about this meeting before, but it has a lot of financial jargon that I don't follow. I'll try my best here, but things might get a bit weird.
After minutes approval, we're on to a Contract Award for Independent Audit Services.
5 years w/ CliftonLarsonAllen, at a cost of ~$922k.
Up Next: contract modification for Talent Management Software. We've been using this one for a few years now, but are looking for a new solution.
While that's in progress, they're trying to extend our contract w/ this provider for another year, $193k.
More Software Contracts: An update for timekeeping software.
Ha, we moved from onprem -> cloud for this software, and then they had a cyberattack. Now, after all of that, they're making us upgrade to a new software. Enterprise Software is such a bananas industry.
It's ~$425k to do the upgrade, and they already have $500k set aside, so they're asking for a Sole-Source-Contract - I believe that means they don't have to go out and bid.
Passed via voice vote.
Next up: Board Policy changes. (I just noticed this minutes packet is 489 pages long, yeesh)
These are changes to the Audit Committee Charter, to comply with best practices in that world.
Passed via voice vote. Same person is going into the next few items:
Item 9: Audit Follow-up Summary.
Item 10: Status report for internal audits. There's some new software, and some internal audits are happening.
Item 11: State Safety Oversight - on a calendar year basis, this is for Q2 2023.
I have no idea what information might be useful here, but you can find it all in the packet: https://www.bistatedev.org/wp-content/uploads/08-18-2023-Audit-Finance-Administration-Committee-Open-Meeting-Materials.pdf
Comment from Taulby: Metro Store audit almost done, IT Pen Testing audit happening soon, praise to the audit team for making this happen.
For information only: Risk Management Insurance updates.
Over 20 different types of coverage, 5% increase in premiums, but that was 6% under budget.
That was excluding property, which sounds like it's gotten *way* more expensive. BiState had 3 losses: LRV derailment, airport fire, and flooding damage from this year.
Property premium increased 67%, deductible is $1 mil. Apparently this is common for transit agencies around the nation.
In total, 24% increase from last year, 5% over budget.
Commissioner Windmiller asks Taulby to plan for these property insurance increases so we don't go over budget in the meantime. Not just for the premium, but also for the deductible.
Taulby also mentions that our recent history didn't help rates, but we had great insurance coverage for the flood damage.
Next two items: Financial Statements & Treasurer's Report.
FY23 Independent Audit is almost done, sounds like we're getting a full report in the November Board meeting.
Expenses are generally down everywhere, but the reason is because we're paying less people for wages and benefits so 🙃