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SEPTA will be able to tap into capital assistance funds in order to continue to run daily operations unabated thanks to a new approval from the administration of Pa. Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat.
On Monday, Shapiro’s office announced that the governor has directed Mike Carroll, the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to approve of SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer’s request to use up to $394 million in capital assistance funds for daily operations.
The move comes after Sauer requested funds last week in order to “preserve existing service and avoid planned service cuts for the next two years.”
Late last week, a judge ordered SEPTA to rollback plans for service cuts — but, the mass transit provider could still move forward with a plan to raise fares — amid a lawsuit brought forward that seeks to undo service cuts that were put in place earlier this year.
As SEPTA is now permitted to tap into this funding to address a $213 million budget deficit, Shapiro’s office said the governor has long supported adding funds to mass transit providers throughout the state.
His — still unapproved — budget plan for the state includes a $292 million for mass transit efforts statewide and, Shapiro’s office said, the proposed budget would grow mass transit funding to $1.5 billion over five years.
In his letter to SEPTA, PennDOT’s Carroll argues that that a State Senate approved plan would fail to meet the needs of mass transit providers and wouldn’t provide a long-term solution to funding issues.
A previously presented Democratic-backed transit funding bill was not approved by the Senate.
Meanwhile, a Republican-supported funding plan that would have used money from the Public Transportation Trust Fund (PTTF) passed the Senate but was not approved by a House Committee.
“First, it would have provided a fraction of the funding that the Governor proposed as part of his proposal to provide new funding for system operations. Second, it would have required these systems to utilize their capital funding over two fiscal years to fill the gap without a revenue source to replace the lost funding they are already relying on for capital projects,” wrote Carroll in his letter. “Third, it would have taken funding away from capital projects already underway, thereby compromising the safety and efficiency of the transit system. Fourth, this Senate-passed bill would have only provided a temporary fix, at a time when systems are seeking assurance that the Commonwealth can provide long term sustainability to their operations. Fifth and most concerningly, this bill would have taken existing resources out of the PTTF, in the amount of $419 million, and sent them to the Motor License Fund for road paving projects. While PennDOT and the Shapiro Administration support funding for road repair projects and have allocated significant resources to that work, we do not believe utilizing mass transit funding for such purposes is sound public policy.”
Now, SEPTA will be permitted to use up to $394 million of the mass transit provider’s capitol allowance allocation for 2025-26, that has yet to be obligated. This isn’t funding that has been previously committed to other initiatives, Shapiro’s office said.
This move will not use PTTF dollars that are already committed to other initiatives, Shapiro’s office said.
As a condition of this approval, Shapiro’s office said that the governor has instructed SEPTA to continue to address “structural challenges” and report to PennDOT every 120 days with details on steps take and progress made to increase efficiencies within SEPTA’s system.
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Hayden Mitman
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