CARTA will not be moving back to full service on July 26. This plan was shelved after COVID numbers in the county continue to rise and nine of CARTA’s own employees have tested positive for COVID-19.
Executive Director Lisa Maragnano said CARTA will maintain its Monday through Saturday schedule, and the last trip will be at 9:30. Ms. Maragnano said Aug. 16 is when CARTA is looking at adding the Mocs Express line to CARTA, as UTC students will presumably be going back to campus.
She said the downtown shuttle will continue to run Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
While passengers are encouraged to wear masks, and wearing masks is mandated by the county in public, Ms. Maragnano said CARTA will not enforce this. She said CARTA does not want to put their workers in a confrontational position. Signs encouraging mask-wearing will also go up inside the vehicles.
Also, CARTA buses are now moving to half capacity rather than a limit of 10 people per vehicle. This will allow larger numbers to use CARTA.
“Effective today, we will be moving to 50 percent capacity for the vehicles,” said Ms. Maragnano. “What that does for us is that instead of just limiting to 10, depending on the size of the vehicle, we could have 12 or 16 on the vehicle.”
CARTA approved the 2021 budget during Thursday’s meeting. The total operating revenue is $25,180,742, and the total expenses is also this same amount. Last year, the budget was $22,831,290.
Sonja Sparks presented the budget, saying this represented a 2 percent overall increase, which was subsidized by the CARES Act. She said revenue in general has gone down. Passenger revenue has decreased by $2,106,816 and parking revenue has decreased by $1,671,904. However, the CARES Act has provided $5,522,413 to CARTA.
“Our increase in operations is due to a three percent raise for union employees-only, and that is contract-driven, and an increase in pension plans,” said Ms. Sparks. “That also includes a medical insurance increase of 8.78 percent, which is out of our control.”
Ms. Sparks said CARTA still has $1.6 million budgeted for the 2022 budget as well, which she called “a cushion.” Bill Allen asked about the increase in maintenance expenses, which is preventative maintenance.
“It is our regular maintenance fee, but we are also able to bill federal monies at 100 percent instead of 80 percent,” said Ms. Sparks.
Lisa Maragnano said revenues could possibly increase because of the Incline or parking, and she told the board “this could be a fluid year as far as revenue numbers go.” The budget was unanimously approved by the board.