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CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK
<br /> portions are made up through Federal Operating and Federal Maintenance Funds. We budgeted
<br /> $10,617,606 for wages, and as you can see, our entire budget is mostly set by expenses that we
<br /> don't have a lot of control over in the form of wages, benefits, fuel and utilities. Our budget is
<br /> pretty much consistent with what has been reported in prior years.
<br /> He continued, You'll see our operating expenses from 2012 to the present, and that it dipped but
<br /> then it went up in 2016.Now we are flatlining to go down about$45,000 from the prior year. We
<br /> made some changes in expenses this year, decreasing some of our services that we were paying
<br /> for.Labor is the biggest portion of our budget,making up over fifty percent(50%),and it is mostly
<br /> flatlined from the prior year's presentations. Health insurance is the most uncontrollable expense
<br /> that we have. In 2017 it was at $1.5 million, and it dropped to $1.2 million in 2018. We were
<br /> originally with Anthem and then we switched to the County plan. It went up because we had a bad
<br /> year in 2017 since it is a self-funded program. Right now, we are paying this year's expense and
<br /> we have built-in expenses from the prior year that we are making up so we are at a zero (0)balance
<br /> with the County.
<br /> Ms. Hill stated, Passenger revenue and ridership continue to trend down slightly. That is typical
<br /> for transportation agencies that have a large transit dependent ridership. About eighty to eight-five
<br /> percent (80%-85%) of our riders depend on public transportation as their only means of
<br /> transportation to get around our community. We had strong ridership this summer, thanks in part
<br /> to our summer travel program for our K-12 students, and we're really focusing on building that.
<br /> Year-to-date,we are down about two percent(2%) in ridership,which, looking at our peers across
<br /> the country,we really are doing well.To boost that passenger revenue,we continue to explore new
<br /> ridership initiatives and additional partnerships as well.
<br /> Mr. Kubaszak stated, We decided to show you property taxes from 2016-2022. This is where we
<br /> are going to see our biggest hit happen when the 2020 circuit breaker goes into effect. We hired
<br /> Umbaugh and Associates to do a review and determine the impact of that property tax hit. We'll
<br /> see that in 2019, and we are estimating from their report that we should get about $3.1 million in
<br /> property taxes.After the circuit breaker hits,we're going to lose about$300,000 in property taxes,
<br /> so we are going to go down about $2.7 million, then see a slight increase each year to 2020. The
<br /> overwhelming thing to see is that if you look at our property tax estimate revenue, in 2020, we're
<br /> estimating that we'll get$2,945,000. That will be almost the same exact amount of property taxes
<br /> we received in 2018. Over the four (4) years, our property tax revenues will be stagnant,
<br /> considering there will more than likely be increases in health insurance, labor, and other
<br /> miscellaneous utilities and especially vehicle insurance.
<br /> Ms. Hill stated, As far as our operating assistance, the Public Mass Transportation Fund for the
<br /> State of Indiana has remained relatively flat. We are projected to see a little bit of a decrease for
<br /> 2019. On the opposite side, the federal operating assistance saw a slight decrease in 2018, and
<br /> we're expecting that to go up a little bit for 2019 as well. Those increases and decreases are pretty
<br /> insignificant.
<br /> She continued, Some of our accomplishments for 2018 include launching new partnerships with
<br /> Holy Cross College and IU South Bend similar to our partnerships with St. Mary's, Notre Dame
<br /> and Ivy Tech. The colleges and universities pay to provide that free transportation to students,
<br /> faculty and staff. We also launched our free summer travel program. Our goal was 12,000 rides
<br /> for this summer, and we finished with 27,571. Our prior record was 7,000. We decided to make
<br /> EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT
<br /> 455 County-City Building 1227 W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011p 574.235.92211f 574.235.9173[TTD 574.235.5567 Iwww.southbendin.gov
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