Casey’s comments occurred during testimony at a Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee hearing held at Temple University on Sept. 12.Fiscal Year 2014, which began July 1, 2013, has the lowest

Casey’s comments occurred during testimony at a Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee hearing held at Temple University on Sept. 12.

Fiscal Year 2014, which began July 1, 2013, has the lowest level of capital funding for SEPTA in 15 years and is the fourth consecutive year of reduced capital funding from the state. In contrast, SEPTA has seen overall ridership hit its highest levels in more than two decades, including an all-time high on Regional Rail last year. To the need for more capital funding from the state of transportation committee

To continue safe and reliable operations, SEPTA will have to implement a Service Realignment Plan that the authority expects to leave 89,000 daily riders – or 40.7 million annually – without rail service. This is due to the critical, immediate need to modernize SEPTA’s rail network, such as replacement of bridges that date back 100 years or more and purchasing new Regional Rail cars, subway cars and trolleys to replace vehicles that already date back 30 years or more and are well beyond their useful service life. Without an increase in state funding for infrastructure improvements and new vehicles, SEPTA anticipates the implementation of the ten-year service realignment beginning in 2014 and would have to reduce the size and scope of the rail network over the next ten years by:

– Eliminating service on nine of 13 Regional Rail Lines, including Cynwyd in 2014, Media/Elwyn in 2015, and Chestnut Hill West in 2018, followed West Trenton, Airport Warminster, Wilmington/Newark, Fox Chase and Chestnut Hill East lines in 2023;

– Truncating service on the Lansdale/Doylestown Line (2018) and Paoli/Thorndale Line (2023);

– Suspending service on the Broad-Ridge Spur of the Broad Street Line and eliminating all express service on the Broad Street Line;

– Converting all city and suburban trolley routes to bus, and truncating service on the Norristown High Speed Line.

Casey and SEPTA Board Chairman Pasquale Deon detailed these needs and the impact of these pending transit cuts in a letter sent earlier this week to state Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch. In the letter, SEPTA detailed the $6.5 billion needed over the next 10 years to address the transit system’s state of good repair needs. The letter also noted the impact of shrinking SEPTA on regional and state transportation as a whole, as vehicles are added to roadways, increasing both traffic congestion and roadway maintenance costs.

Assignment

Put yourself in the position of Controller (the chief management accountant) for SEPTA.  Read the article cited for more information about the Doomsday Plan. Think about the meetings that would have taken place at SEPTA while the Doomsday Plan was prepared, before it was presented to the PA Transportation Secretary. Remember that the organizational goals of an entity like SEPTA are not profits or returns to shareholders.  What are SEPTA's goals, both short term and long term?  From what source are they trying to get the funding? What information will SEPTA present (and to whom are SEPTA executives presenting) to justify the request for funding?

Describe three reports that you would have presented during the management meetings that were held as SEPTA’s management team formulated the “doomsday” plan.

• The reports must be ones that we studied this semester, although it does not need to be the exact report.  The report can be modified to suit the situation.
• Include different reports.  For example, if you include a Service Overhead Budget, then do not include any other operating budget, and avoid including any other budget from the same chapter.
• Be specific about the report. Details will vary according to the report you choose to present, but you might include the format, what information would be included, and where you would obtain that data or information.
• You may present a rough draft of the format of the report if that is easier than writing a description.
• Explain why the chosen report would be useful.
• Length should be about 500 words, or 2 typed pages, single space with double space between paragraphs, heading to highlight different sections to make the report more readable for executives. (Please do not add "fluff" to get to 500 words.  If you can present the information in fewer words, that is fine.)