Capital Metro budget raises questions

AUSTIN (KXAN) - When Capital Metro’s Board of Directors meet to discuss the proposed year 2010 budget on September 21,  they will have to address more than how they’ll be spending taxpayer dollars.

There are questions with the accuracy of the information presented in the budget. The problem is the numbers shown as FY 2009 Budget do not accurately reflect the numbers approved by the board last year.

“February is when we started talking about needing to revise the budget because of sales taxes coming down and we developed a revised budget and our intention at that time was to go through a formal amendment process," said Randall Hume, Cap Metro’s Chief Financial Officer.

The formal amendment process legally requires the board to hold a public hearing to discuss how it will revise the budget. But that hearing never happened.

Hume said, "It's just a matter of time, effort and confusion to the community is why we decided not to."

Instead, he says, Cap Metro staff presented two sets of books to board members. One set included the approved budget and the other reflected the revised budget.

Official board minutes show no such mention of a revised budget was discussed by the board and copies of both sets of budgets are not available on its website.

Hume acknowledged that the FY 2010 Budget does not disclose the FY 2009 Budget numbers that differ from the board approved version.  He also acknowledged there is no way for the public to know they changed the numbers.

Now, the board will have to decide whether to continue the public review process using the revised numbers or correct the proposed budget and start the review process over.

If the board opts to move forward with the budget containing inaccurate or misleading information, it could risk being challenged in court.

Starting over with a corrected version is no easy decision either. State law requires Cap Metro to post its proposed budget 14 days prior to the public hearing. September 30 is the end of the fiscal year, so Cap Metro would have to post the corrected version by Wednesday, September 16th in order to hold the public hearing and official vote before the end of its year.

The law prohibits Cap Metro from conducting any business until its board has approved a budget.

Board Chairwoman, Margaret Gomez said she will ask Cap Metro’s outside auditors for guidance on the issue.