Lane Transit District agrees to correct deficiencies in 9 areas

The Federal Transit Administration finished its triennial review of LTD. Nine of 20 review areas had deficiencies requiring corrective action. During the Aug. 21 Lane Transit District board meeting:

Rebecca Hay (Lane Transit District): My name is Rebecca Hay and I’m the compliance officer here for LTD. The purpose of this presentation is to make the board aware of the 2024 triennial review and where we are at in that process. There’s 23 review areas.

[00:00:28] One of the things that FTA is really pushing is that they don’t want it to be seen as an audit. They really want to see it as a review and an opportunity for them to come in and give us recommendations.

[00:00:40] There’s actually three areas that did not apply to LTD, so that leaves 20 review areas that apply to us, and out of that, we had nine deficiencies.

[00:00:51] We are actually at the final report stage, and we have 120 calendar days to submit all corrective actions, which means we have until Nov. 11 to get FTA all corrective actions and at this time we are on schedule and we’re doing a great job with that.

[00:01:11] John Q: For example, here are three deficiencies in the report:

• LTD failed to notify the FTA about a $10 million lawsuit relating to the homicide on the EmX;
• LTD incurred project costs before getting all permits and approvals;
• The shuttle bus for the Butte to Butte Race also appeared in the report for rules relating to charter buses.

[00:01:31] The report notes that two of these three deficiencies are already closed.

[00:01:37] Jameson Auten (LTD CEO): Yeah, so this isn’t out of the norm. The results that we see here is pretty normal stuff. And what is out of the norm is the areas that we didn’t have findings in, which I found interesting.

[00:01:47] Usually they crawl all over you for procurement, right? How are you spending the money? We did well there. Finance: How are you tracking the money? We did well there. So some pretty good results, some good work to do. This gives us an opportunity to reset and have a baseline. So we know that we’ll be where we need to be. So it’s good information.

[00:02:08] They also offered Rebecca and her team the opportunity to go to other exit interviews with transit systems, because the focus kind of changes every once in a while. The focus changed in this one. It’s in the paper that they were looking at, you know, how we were extra care in spending the CRRSAA (Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act) money and the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security) relief funds. So they were focused on that.

[00:02:29] They were also focused on property, how we handle our excess property. So that was a focus area that wasn’t the same as the last time. So being able to see those coming forward or moving forward will be helpful as well.

[00:02:42] So good process. We’re going to make sure we have everything documented and probably mid-, a year and a half from now, we’ll probably do a mock triennial internally, just to make sure that we’re tracking where we need to be.

[00:02:54] John Q: Among the other deficiencies, LTD didn’t have a full Safety Risk Reduction Program to reduce the number and rates of safety events, injuries, and assaults on transit workers. LTD must also complete its Equal Employment Opportunity program, and designate sufficient resources to support Disadvantaged Business Enterprises.