>> good morning, everyone. We welcome
you to the regular meeting of the
board of
trustees for the utah
transit authority. Today is
wednesday, september the 24th
of 2025. Just a couple matters of business
to share with you. This meeting is
being held
in person
but being broadcast live through our uta
board
meeting webpage, and for the public
who may be viewing it and
would like to make comment, there
is a feature in zoom known
as raise the hand, and when we
get to public comments, if you'll
raise that hand, then that will
allow our staff to know you'd like
to make comment. If
you're here in person, we'd ask that
you
fill out a card when we get to that
section in both
cases, we'll ask you to limit
your comments to three minutes. With
that, we want you to stand and join
us in the pledge of allegiance. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to
the republic for which it stands, one nation under
god, indivisible, with
liberty and justice for all.
>> with that we'll turn to
our safety first minute,
and we'll welcome our
chief people officer, ann green barton. Ann.
>>
good morning. All right. As we
move into the fall and winter months, the
sun is setting earlier, and
that means reduced visibility during
later commutes and evening
work. Whether you're behind the wheel, walking
through a
building or moving between parking
areas, stay
alert and take extra time to look
around, wear reflective gear when
appropriate, and avoid distractions
like your
phone. The shorter days don't have
to mean greater risks. By staying
aware, we can keep ourselves
and each
other safe. Thank you.
>> thanks,
ann. With
that, we'll turn to public comment. Curtis,
do we have any
cards? Is there anybody here that
came in person
to make comment that we
missed? Okay. How about online? And
then online. If there are others that
would like
to make comment
after the fact, we certainly welcome
those. With that we'll go to our consent
agenda
which is minutes from
a prior meeting.
>> motion to apleuv
the
cob sent agenda.
>> second. >> I have
a motion seconded
by jeff to approve the consent. All
in
favor say aye.
>>
aye.
>> any opposed? That motion passes. With
that we'll
go to our executive director jay fox
for his report. Good morning, jay.
>>
good
morning, trustees. Well, if you haven't
heard the good news yet, and I'm
sure you have
since you were with me, the utah transit
authority was named the outstanding
public transportation --
>> we probably
should
have you hold that just a tad closer.
>>
closer?
>> there we go. Thank you. >>
we have been
named --we announced this previously,
but we
received the award
this week for the 2025 outstanding
public transportation
system for agencies of our size
in north america. So I just
note is a remarkable honor, one made
possible by
our dedicated employees,
support from our
customers, our partners, contractors,
porters, taxpayer investors, really
it reflects
a unified recognition. That's a picture
of us from -- at
boston where we received the award
last week where
96% of us were dressed
in red. [
laughter ]
>> I just think --if I
sum
this up in one sense, just a reflection
of how far
this agency has
come since
2020, we really have rebounded
very well, and far I think exceeding
the hopes of this area in
terms of how we're providing service now. So
I want to thank you, trustiest, for
your trust in me and
giving me the opportunity to lead
this agency. I want
to thank my executive team for their
leadership
and making this possible. And most
of all,
thank you to what I call the we, all
3,000
of the amazing uta employees who move
our
customers and drive economic growth
everyday for our region
and the state of utah. So just
one last note on this, this award
will
make its rounds around the
agency. We have our comps team is preparing
a
lot of really cool stuff to celebrate
this
--you know, this really prestigious award
for this agency.
>> jay,
as a board, we want to express our
thanks
to you as the executive
director for your leadership.
>>
thanks.
>> and working and making
it inclusive we, and I think
that's deserving of a round of applause. [
applause ]
>> appreciate
it.
>> thank you so much. All right. I
actually
don't have anything else on my
report for this week. I think that
was good,
as a single item. But if you're okay,
I'll move right into
the strategic plan minute
>> that
would be great. Thanks.
>> let me
just
bring up my notes on that. So
this strategic plan
minute focuses on our priority of generating
economic
return, and it is --
it highlights the campaign that
we've kicked off on the value
that we create to our
community. So this initiative is led
by
our communications marketing department. We
had a
really great kickoff on july 16th. Tom
cruise was there, although we never
got to see his face, but I know he
was there. And
it's focused on deploying --
>> I
thought that was brad pitt.
>> oh. Was
it brad
pitt? I'm sorry.
>> it's okay. You
were star
struck. I get it.
>> I'm pretty sure. [
laughter ]
>> and
it's focused on, you know, forming
stakeholders
of all of our value, including
a $5.11 return
for every $1 invested. The media engagement
metics, they're
really well ahead of
our goals. We had 336
articles published versus
a 240 target, and our coverage
would appoint an evaluation that's
pretty high, versus 648 target, if
you really want to
know what that means, I can bring
coms up. We're doing well,
we're recovering well. We've done
social storytelling, social
media, podcast appearances, so we
are getting this
out. All that work is
supported by metro
analytics who study influence the
campaign messaging. And
so thanks again
to our coms team, our creativity, leadership,
and I would say one of
the things they've done really well
is continue to
cycle the message. We're not just
putting in a message and then
leaving it there for somebody to potentially
read, that, you know, we're
regularly reminding --you know, our customers,
our
constituents, our stakeholders of
what we're doing and how
we're doing it and how we're doing
it well. Really
thank you for that
work. Looking forward to expanding this
discussion and reinforcing this maybe
even
during our legislative session and
every opportunity
we have.
>> well, thanks, jay. And
obviously
we need to have you
watch f1 with us.
>> yeah. Yeah. I wanted
to see that one
instead of "how to train
your dragon."
>> that's
great. Thank you, though. With that,
why don't we move to item c
on our agenda which is our pension
committee report. We'll turn
to our colleague jeff acerson. Jeff.
>>
thank you, chair christensen. We've
got
a couple slides we want to show
you. One of the things that we've made
a
commitment to over the long term is
to
move some of our allocation of global
equities into what we
call the private equity arena. And
just
an update on that. That's a
year-over-year time frame. It's not
a short-term transition,
but we've got about 1.3% of
the 10% that we've allocated to go
into that. And so
probably in the next
two, maybe three years we'll
start to see how that responds and
how that
returns on the investment. But we
have
high hopes and good expectations that
that will
be
a very positive move for
the pension allocations. So --and
one more
update. In the next slide maybe
it'll show it. Yes. We're about a
10% return year to date on
the pension, so that's --we're doing
all right. You know, we
had quite a discussion the previous
time we met
about tariffs
and how that might react or respond
to
how it does in the marketplace. But
at least up
to this point, we haven't really
seen a negative impact on that. Hold
our breath. You know, knock
on wood, whatever we need to do
to make sure that doesn't happen. But
--so this
year to date is up
to july 31st, 2025. And quite
honestly, the market has responded
quite
well, even after july. So
we have a pretty positive expectation
that that
return will even increase a little bit. So
--
>> any questions for jeff? Thanks,
jeff.
>> it's kind
of nice to have a good report
>>
yeah.
>> it's doing well. There isn't
much to say. Just keep going.
>>
that's great, though. Nice to see
that
progress. With that, we'll move to resolutions. And
the
first item before us is a
resolution approving the
first amendment to the
authority's 2025 to 2029 five-year
capital plan. And
with that we welcome vi miller,
as well as dan hofer. Vi.
>>
>> good morning, trustees. Good
morning, jay. So we have brought this
forward for
discussion, and then we took it to
l.a.c. For discussion,
and we are back to
request approval of this
amendment to the 2025 through 2029
five-year capital plan. You'll see
there's also a request for a
2025 budget amendment. This increases
the five-year plan amounts for
two projects. It's the light
rail vehicle replacements and the
mount ogden folding expansion. One
of the discussions we'll have today
is to talk
to you about what happened with our bonding
and
our bonding program that we did back
in august was to
support these two projects. And so
this adds $39.9 million to the five-year
plan,
and these are
all bond funds. So, again, we had
a discussion with the board
on july 23rd, and then we had a
consultation with the
local advisory council on august 27th. Academy
I'll have
dan walk you through.
>> thanks, vi. We'll walk through
the individual projects so you can see
the
differences between the current planning
and
the proposed plan. These are the same
as what was already discussed. But
for the light rail
project, overall it adds the two
critical points, adds $67 million
to this year's budget. This
will be for the exercising of
the options so we can
get the additional 20 vehicles
started. And then --
>> 40 all together,
right, which is all
the rolling stock that we initially
wanted to replace?
>> that's correct. It
will replace
both of those two --all those
fleets. So --and then as mentioned,
the $67 million
this year, there's some shifting
in the middle years,
and then some
additional added almost $27 million
in 2029. The overall
net addition
to this project alone is $23.4 million.
>>
and can
I ask a question on that slide?
>>
sure.
>>
and maybe this is to you, vi. When
we bonded, we knew
we would go back
and, you know, tentatively in '28
further the additional funding. Does
the exercise under this option change the
horizon of that
need for additional bonding?
>> we
are still planning to
go back out in '28.
>> okay. >> the
dollar amount
is an estimate right now that we
have built into this plan amendment change,
as well as into the tentative
budget
that we'll be discussing later.
>> okay. Thanks. >>
I
just wanted to --
sorry, dan. My brain just totally
clicked into this. I
think --and as we have these discussions,
and as we
continue to look at these improvements and
these investments, I think one of
the things I wanted
to kind of just re-rearticulate
is that these strategic investments are
actually going to be long-term transformational for our
community. And I know
that it is --I know people always
question
how
do you navigate the whole bonding strategy. And
as
we all know, grants are subjective
and competitive. And
so I think as we continue to have
these discussions, and we strategize
for our
finances, I think it's always good
to
have that as that reference point because
we're not always going to be
in a situation where we would --we'll
simply just get money
just because we asked for it. And
so as we
continue to do this, I think that
it's --you guys have
done an excellent job in really
trying to navigate this and work out
strategies so that we can continue
to be effective as we go out to
that market. We just don't know how everything
is going to go. But infrastructure,
again, I think is one of the most critical
things. And as
we look at that, and we look at our
growth,
I think this is such a worthy investment
in not
just our system but our communities. So
I just wanted to
say that because I know
you have a very challenging task ahead
of you.
>> thank you, beth. And I
also would
like to reiterate for the public
that we did receive $60 million
towards this project from the federal government.
>>
okay. The
mount ogden project, the changes
are highlighted here. Overall we were
adding
$16.5 million to this project, bringing
it to a total
of $26.2 million. This amount does
include
about $3.7 million in formula
grant funds that we receive annually. And
what
this will do --you'll notice that
there's no change in 2025,
but the changes occur in the out years
by doing this amendment now it allows
us to proceed with the
procurement of a contractor to get
started earlier on this project. The
overall differences between the
plans are highlighted here. The top
row has
the existing plan where it's about
$1.2 billion
overall, and then the individual yearly
totals are highlighted in the middle. The
project lines show the net difference
that was the
bottom line
in the previous tables that we discussed. You
can
see the totals
there. The new proposed plan captures the $67
million addition
in 2025, as well as the
changes in the remaining outyears
as well with the overall
new total
for the proposed plan being $1.24 billion. And
as you can
see at the bottom, it
gives a net change year over year, and
in the bottom
right, you can see the $39.9
million that vi alluded to earlier. Any
questions?
>>
any questions from the board?
>> chair,
I'm prepared
to make
a motion
to approve the resolution r-25-09-05,
resolution
approving the first
amendment to the authority's 2025-2029
five-year capital
plan as presented.
>> second. >> I
have a motion from
jeff, seconded by beth to approve
the resolution. With
that,
I'll ask for
roll call.
>> trusteeaceeerson aye. >>
trustee.
>> aye. >> chair christensen. >>
aye.
>> it's a resolution
approving the first
amendment to the authority's
2025 capital budget. And, vi and dan.
>>
so we can get
through this one pretty quickly as
the capital budget
is the first year of the
capital plan. And so, of course,
we are previously discussing of amending
the
plan, this
is amending specifically the 2025 budget
year. We, again, had this discussion with
the board and
with the consultation with the local advisory
council. This
is going to increase
the 2025 budget authority by $67 million. And,
again,
dan just took
you through some of
those details.
>> here's a snapshot
of the overall budget overview
for the change. As you can see,
the current budget
is on top
with our $332.million budget, the
67 we're seeking to add is
all with the sd light rail vehicle replacement
project, and
the new total will be
$397.2 million. Any questions?
>>
only
question I had was on mount ogden. So
the change and then the change in
the capital plan allow us
to go out
for procurement of the actual contractor. I
assume you have a design
firm on board and they're working.
>>
yeah. Design
--final design should be done --if
it's
not done already, done
very shortly.
>> okay. All right. Questions
for anybody? Seeing
none, I'd entertain a motion on
the
resolution.
>> motion to approve resolution r2025-09-06,
the
resolution approving the first amendment
to the
authority's 2025 capital budget as
presented.
>> second. >> I have a
motion from beth, seconded by jeff
to approve the resolution. With that,
I'll
ask for roll call.
>>
trustee holbrook.
>> aye. >> trustee
acerson.
>> aye. >> c >> aye. Thanks
for
your work on it. Exciting to see those
projects move forward.
>> thank
you very much.
>> yes, thank you. Item
c
before us is a resolution accepting
the
conveyance of a real property interests associated
with the frontrunner 2x and frontrunner
point improvement projects. And with
that we
welcome jared scarbrough , paul drake,
and we don't
see janelle, so I'm guessing jared is
covering for
the team.
>> I will
do my best. Jared
scarbrough chief acts capital services
officer. Janelle
is at a mandatory meeting with udot
for an upcoming procurement and could not
make it
with us this morning.
>> understandable. >>
yeah. We
are here seeking approval of resolution
of for the conveyance of property
from
frontrunner 2x and frontrunner point improvement
project, also
known as fpi. We did come to the board
in october of 2023
with a frontrunner cooperative agreement
between udot
and
uta which discusses the purchasing of
property. And udot
will purchase land. Basically this
is land within the alignment. It's not
in large chunks of,
you know, parking lots or anything. That's
smaller
slivers of land along the corridor. And
then uta will still manage the
purchase of property through union
pacific. So this will cover the private property
piece. But
I'll turn it over to paul
to walk through
the resolution.
>> great. Thanks,
jared. And thanks, trustees. So
anyway, excuse me, like jared said,
we've
worked buying all these properties
for the improvements
for frontrunner. There are 11 key
locations where we're
looking to buy
right of way, plus a new station. All
of
that requires new right of way. Like
jared said, there's
a lot of slivers that we're picking up. Here's
the
data. The number of parcels is 190
for a total of
about 40 acres. The budget for udot
is $70 million. This is going to be
used or is anticipated
to be used
as local match for
a future federal grant. And the resolution
that we're talking about today actually allows
us --or it allows
udot to purchase the property in uta's
name. And
this was something that was contemplated
over
a lot of conversations between us
and our partner that
was actually formalized
in a 2023 agreement, frontrunner cooperative agreement. Going
to
--sorry. Was there a question?
>>
sorry. I didn't
want to interrupt
your flow. Sorry. Go ahead.
>> no,
no. That's fine. We
can go into the
various segments. We've got a
3.8-mile segment north of clearfield
station. We've got 2.1
miles
north of woods cross. We've got 1.8
miles in
beck yard, two miles south
of salt lake
central between 17th south and 3300
south,
1.6 miles south of murray central,
3.1 miles south of draper station. So
these
are all segments where we're going
to buy
slivers on either side. We're not
calling
out any specific at this point. That
station in
bluffdale that will serve the new development and
the growth going on
at the point,
2.1 miles north of leohio station,
4.4 just north of american
fork, 3.8 between american fork
and vineyard station, 1.7
miles north of orem. And then
a segment just north
of provo. So those are the areas. Any
questions on
that? We can
review it. Go ahead.
>> so obviously
you hope to
only buy a sliver. Sometimes a property
owner will say you gotta
buy it all because it's not worth
anything to me at that point. Does
udot
just dispose of the remaining portion through
their own program or does any of
it enter into like a potential t.o.d.
kind of
thing?
>> right now all the properties are
just contemplated
to be part of this
project. So we're not contemplating
any future t.o.d.
at this point.
>> okay. >> yup. >>
and I guess at
this point they may or
may not have agreements to purchase
it, just go through the normal procurement
process,
I assume?
>> they are working on them right
now. They
have a contractor that's out there
talking to these property owners right
now. There's some
that are actually ready to go which
is
why we're hoping to have this resolution passed
because it
does help us to close those transactions. I'm
sorry. Does
that answer
your question?
>> yeah. No. It does. That's
helpful. Thanks. Were there other
question?
>> so I
just wanted to kind
of, like, reiterate because I think that
it is --people
and land always get a little
heightened in their excitement over
these issues. But,
really, this is -- according to the
discussion strategy, really, this
is just active corridor, and the desire, of
course, is to just be getting that
corridor in
and of itself for the
actual operational pieces
only. And I just wanted to talk about what
--
how long do you
think that this process will take overall? You
mentioned that you have several
that are ready to close. But I was
just curious how
long you think this
would take?
>> well, good
question. The resolution does
have a end to 2027. It's anticipated
that
it might go longer than that. There's
always some lingering property transactions,
but hopefully we're getting the
bulk of those within that time frame.
>>
I know that it is always hard to actually
pin
some of that down. But I appreciate
that because I did notice that
there's
a timeline on that. So thank you.
>>
there
is also some parameters within the
resolution that
I would cover if I could. The properties
that are
over a million dollars, this would
not cover
those. Those would come to
the board individually. We're also
--we're also making sure
that uta staff are working with udot
to make
sure that the properties are environmentally cleared. We're
also consistent with utah code in
requiring an
affidavit with each of these
properties. And then we'll come back
to the board
quarterly to report on the status
of
these acquisitions. And like I
was mentioning, the deadline
in 2027. Any
further questions for us?
>> seems
like
an efficient process to do these important transactions.
>>
chair,
if I could make a comment. You
know,
I was impressed with how udot
approaches this purchase of property
to
preserve that right of way to move forward
frontrunner. Just in
the discussions I listened to, as
they addressed the public and the
community, the council, they've got
this down. They know what they're
doing. They really plan
for every possible outcome and challenge that's
there, and it's -- anyway,
it was --I think as I listened to
that meeting with brian allen, it
was very impressive to
see they
really cover all the bases and make sure
as
we have
impact on the community we're
fair, we're understanding because
the dollar amount isn't the only
thing. It's the impact that it has on individuals,
and I just want to applaud udot's
process and the partnership that
we have with them. So thank you.
>>
okay. Unless there's other questions, I'd
entertain a motion.
>> okay. I'll
make
the motion to approve the
resolution r2025-09-07, resolution
accepting the conveyance of
real property interests associated
with the frontrunner 2x
and frontrunner point improvements
projects as presented.
>> second. >>
I have a motion from jeff, seconded
by beth to approve the resolution. With
that, I'll ask
for roll call.
>> trustee
acerson.
>> aye. >> trustee holbrook. >>
aye.
>> chair christensen. >>
aye. Thanks for your work on it. Let's
see. Making
sure I'm in the
right place. Okay. That is the
right place. We're down to contracts, disbursements
and grants. The first item before
us is a change order for
outside legal services modification
to increase
the not-to-exceed amount for outside
legal services
pool
with
chapman and cutter,
fabian
vancott, gilmore bell, jackson,
lewis. Anyway, nossman, parsons, bailey and
latimer and spencer fane and venable
llp.
>>
a lot of
law firms. Yes. Good morning. I'm
david
wilkins an assistant attorney general
with the utah office of
attorney
general. Just for a brief background. What
we've done
with outside legal services is we've
created a pool
contract of expertise, and that allows
when uta does have
a need for outside legal services,
it's as simple as picking up
the phone and initiating the call. If
the agency didn't do that, and we
needed to
figure out outside legal services
through my office, we would actually have
to
do a procurement every time. And often
when we need
outside legal services, it's a very important
issue, and that
saves us a lot of time. Back last
year when
mike bell and I worked
on renewing this pool contract, we
got the advocates
out and worked really hard to
determine what the not-to-exceed value
would be based
on based on previous usage and needs. Of
course what happened is after we
did that, the agency
we started using outside legal services
and non-conventional needs, and a
good example of that is the
policy project. We have fabian van
cott working with
the agency on revamping its policies
and doing a very good job at it. Even
though
that money doesn't come out of the
legal services budget, it still
goes against the contract. And so
we found
ourselves running up against the original $500,000
not to exceed,
and so we're just coming to you today to
bump that up for
the rest of the remaining
four years of the contract. Hopefully
we won't get close
to it. But it's
just issues like that.
>> makes
sense. And it's nice to have access
to some
of that expertise as well. Any other
questions?
>>
not a question, just a comment. It's
unfortunate
that we've already spent almost a half
a million just on some of these issues. And
some of these
issues that are being
addressed by these law firms is our
--obviously critical to
how
we operate. You've got railroad law, officer-involved
incidents, labor
and employment, construction,
et cetera, and pension, and I think, unfortunately, we are
also expanding, and there's all these other
things. And so I
do think that as
we continue to look forward,
this is a good strategy to scalpellize
and fine tune whatever
the issue is with these particular
law firms
and then be able to navigate from
there. So I
just wanted to make that comment
because it's never inexpensive to
expand.
>>
no. And that's a good comment, trustee
holbrook. You
know, outside attorneys can get very
expensive very quickly. And we
do try to minimize our use of outside
counsel for
that because I like to be a good steward
of
the taxpayers' money and the money
that you all put in
your legal budget every year. It's
just that we've had
some weird issues this year or unusual
issues. And we will
continue to always scrutinize our
use of outside counsel in order to
make
sure that we're getting the most bang for
the buck for the
agency.
>> I agree. And I
don't know if scalpellize is a word,
but I'm going
to call it one. With that, I'm happy
to
make a motion.
>> sure. >> motion
to
approve the increase to the not-to-exceed amount
for the
outside legal services pool with the above-listed
firms as presented.
>> second. >>
I have a motion from
beth, seconded by jeff to approve
the change order. All
in favor say aye.
>>
aye.
>> any opposed? That motion passes. Thanks,
david. Item b before us is
a change order for the
on-call infrastructure maintenance contract
task order number 25-043. This
for the maintenance of
way training yard
construction with stacey
and witbeck. Dave osborn. Dave.
>>
did the microphone turn on? Okay. Yes. We're
here today seeking approval of
a contract task order, number
25-043, the maintenance
training
yard for stacey and witbeck, incorporated. And
this is for the
civil grading, drainage, track work for
the maintenance away training yard. It's
behind the t-tech
building over there on eighth west. And
so
this is maintenance yard for employees. It
enables them to train
on various systems and other things that
they do outside of
the system which is safer
for them, as well
as being
safer for our trains and
passengers. The amount
of the task
order is $3,160,902. Is
there any questions?
>> maybe just
approach --
stacey and witbeck do a good job. A
lot of people could
do grading. Is there a reason you
go with them for the other aspect
of that?
>> on this one, I think one
of the key things on
this is there is track work which
we're putting in
which is kind of specialized. So for
that it makes
sense to use them for
this.
>> any other
questions?
>> okay. I'd entertain
a motion.
>>
I'm make the motion
to approve the task order 25-043 with
stacey and witbeck inc. For the maintenance
training yard construction as presented.
>>
second.
>> I have
a motion from jeff, seconded by beth. One
question
I have before I ask for
a vote. Dave, this was always contemplated,
I assume, as
part of the project in the budget, correct?
>> yes. >>
this is we're just at that phase,
I assume.
>> yes. >> that's great. With
that, all
in favor say aye.
>> aye. >> any
opposed? That motion
passes. Thank you.
>> thank you. >>
with item c, change order
for the state and
local external relations
services with
asg consulting. And with that, welcome
annette royle.
>> good morning. I'm
annette royle, chief of board
strategy and governorrance, and government relations
is one of
the functions that reports
through our office. We utilize lobbyists
and government relations consultants for
the work
that we do to help us
advocate with both our state and federal
partners. And
we have one partner, asg consulting,
who was
procured in 2022 through a competitive process
for three years. And we would like
to execute
a change order that
would extend another year under that agreement. We
will still have one more year remaining
that we could execute under our policies. We
can go up
to five years. So right now we're
just executing
one additional year. The cost of
that year is $60,000, and the cumulative
for the
term of the agreement
is $257,500.
>> any questions for
annette? Seeing none,
I'd entertain a motion.
>> motion
to approve
change order number 2 with asg consulting
llc for state and local external relations services as
presented.
>>
second.
>> I have a motion from
beth, seconded by jeff to approve
the change order. All
in favor say aye
>>
aye.
>> any opposed? That motion passes. Thanks,
annette.
>> that
brings us to item 9
on our agenda, for
budget and other approvals. The first
item before
us is a technical budget adjustment 2025-09-03,
a
technical
budget adjustment for the 2025 operating
budget. Vi miller
and then joined by brad armstrong.
>>
hello again. This technical budget
adjustment is
for the additional of 11fte positions
for mvx service activation. So we
have a plan for service, and
this is just to
add the people to
the plan. This 11fte increases for maintenance
staffing for
mvx that is slated to start
next year. It's staffed to be based
at depot district garage and this will
be nine
for vehicle maintenance and two for facilities. It's
net neutral to the
budget, as we said. It's going to
be funded out
of chief operating officer contingency,
and
it's $242,000 of
the existing $500,000 to be used. This
is
--we generally don't do ongoing cost out
of
contingency, but this is, in fact,
already a part of the 2026
tentative budget plan. And so the
ongoing cost is planned for next
year.
>> and I just -- I wanted to add to that
because I do think it
is important for people to understand
that we have to ramp up
to get to that space, and that's
that difference in contingency versus
just
your standard budgeting. And I just
think that as we shifted this
around, that was part of the
discussion. So I just wanted to put
that out there.
>> absolutely. >>
and
as to timing, even
though it's anticipated for service next
year, I assume or presume that
the timing of this is just that it
takes
a while to hire these kinds of individuals,
and it'll take
--
>> absolutely. And we also have
to be
cognizant of some
things going on internally with
our systems with planning for recruitment. We
are going to have a blackout period
coming up as far
as our changeover to our new hris system.
>>
and then the other question I had
for you is
what about the operators anticipated
for mvx? Is that
in this year's budget? Is that anticipated
next year or how are
we
planning to hire for those?
>> do we
want to bring up --
>>
because I realize this doesn't
include the operators, right?
>> yeah. But we're
ramping up at the same time to make
sure
we have our operators as well, so
--
>> but
are they in our current year budget?
>>
yeah. The
ramp-up is all in our current year,
same thing for the operators.
>> yes. So
we
had ramp, of course,
when we switched, we always had operators
in for planned new service.
>> okay. >>
we just now know that
that planned new service
is for mvx.
>>
gotcha. That's helpful. Thank you. Any
other questions?
>> no. I'll make
the
motion.
>> sure. >>
to approve the tba2025-09-03 technical
budget
adjustment 2025 operating budget as
presented.
>> second. >> I
have a motion from jeff, seconded
by
beth to approve the technical budget
adjustment. All
in favor say aye.
>>
aye.
>> any opposed? That motion passes. >>
I'll
also note we have an operator
and maintenance graduation
today.
>> that's great. That's awesome. Now
our
monitor went away. Is that intentional? Okay. I
didn't know if I kicked it -- did
we kick
a
plug down there?
>> yeah. Powered
off. Is that
it?
>>
yeah. I think it's that switch. There
we
go.
>> it's on. >> jeff has a lot
more
dexterity in his foot than I do. We're
waiting until eric comes back. With
that, we'll move to our discussion
items. The next
one is the next generation fare collection system
update. And we were teased yesterday
in a
meeting, but we're excited
to find out the real information today. So
we'll look forward to this.
>>
thank you and
good morning, trustees and
jay. Brian reeves here,
associate chief financial officer.
>>
monica howe, fares director.
>>
so today we are here to talk to you
about --to share
an update with our next
generation fare collections system
update. Just as kind of a
staging point to think about this,
we've actually just over
two years into this project. As you
know, this is a fairly large
massive project transitioning from
a fare collection system that's been
in place
for some time and
moving to something that's modernized with,
you know, the changes that we see
in the world and how people interact
between, you know, just technology with your phones,
how you, you know, board our different transit,
and so we've been working through that. As
you
can see here, this is kind of
--we had
a multi-phased approach,
right, across multiple years. And just point the phase one, that
was largely the
ticket vending machine
transition and installation which
is
100% complete. Moving
forward we're mostly through phase two, probably pin it right now
at 88%. That
was largely our bus station validator
replacements. And
then, of course, we've got the remaining
pieces
of phase three and phase four which
we'll talk
about a bit more in depth.
>> brian,
can I ask a question? We noticed on
a
couple occasion, and I just didn't
know if it's
a timing or a blackout or they were
all validators but some of the
validators weren't working like on
platforms. And obviously when you're switching
things over, there's sometimes
a time period where you maybe go
dark.
>> sure. No. And I think we'll
kind of illustrate some of
that in talking about in phase two, right? Some
of
the priorities --and maybe I'll move
on
to part of -- you know, what I wanted
to explore in the next slide.
>>
you keep coming to it.
>> no. It's
a fair point. And I think
when we look at even our project,
right,
this is a multi-year project. And
so setting the priorities I would
say is
looking at the customer impact and
how that -- you know, how we
deliver our service. And then, of
course, how we are delivering our
service. So we
want to make
sure that we are dropping in to and
making those
changes in a pinpointed way but also appear
seamless. And
so if there are potential hiccups
or bugs that do
show up, the team is able to
respond
and pull back, work with our vendors,
sheinboardwalkman and address that. I have
to say the team
--I'll share a quote from
bachman, but the team internally here
at uta because you're reaching across operations,
I.t. And interacting with the customer
that that definitely pinpoints
so that we're minimally impacting the customer.
>> I was
just wondering before you proceed,
and, again, if this isn't
part of your presentation moving forward,
no worries. But can you
give us an idea of the scope of the
number of tvms that were
installed and completed on that process? I just
--just for context,
I think it's really helpful for the
public
to understand the scope of
that.
>> monica. >> there were about
133, between 133 --I know
we've added a few, but just off the
top of my head at
least 133, between
133 and 136.
>> and do you anticipate
that's as many as we'll add
for now or future expansion that you
can see
needed that --
>> we do have
extra inventory in stock. So we did
order --I
think there's probably seven more that can
go, so
we'll look at the different
--
>> where demand is? >> uh-huh,
correct.
>> certainly look at the location. If
you say,
for instance, by a school, and we
have institutional contracts, you know,
the ticket vending machine may not
be --even
though there's a lot of traffic there, it
would not be
as widely used versus somewhere else
that we see a
decent amount of activity but is
not going
to
be necessarily, you know, institutional
transit passholders.
>> okay. >> so
looking, I do want to point out that
you
can see some of the shifts that
we are were forecasted in the timeline. And,
again,
this was a multi-year project that obviously
when you
put the lines in
the sand, you're doing best efforts. So
we have projected ourselves to have
a slight moving
back, and, again, that's, you know, doing
the piloting,
the planning and trying to minimize
that impact
to the customer. And so that we respond to
that so
we rely upon the service. I
would point out that budget obviously
is also
very important to that. So these are
not necessarily budget delays but time
delays. And then, of course, you
know, how do we account
for what the future, and so we'll
be talking the
different phases specifically,
but we're about midway through that
phase
three in those design documents.
>>
and how does --
when it's back end stuff, the customers, you
know, paying that much attention obviously. At
what
point do changes in how it
operates become more of
a communications piece with the customer
in your timeline? Do you have
to -- is there
an education need
or is it relatively seamless and intuitive?
>>
seamless, no.
>> we've
done a
lot of communication with customers throughout,
informing them of what they will
see on the platforms or what
they might see happening. And we've
been working with communications on
an
overall strategy for phase
three specifically that we will begin communicating. So
it
is very nuanced because there's different
phases. Again, phase one
and two just replacing the equipment
but communicating that here's
what's happening. So we've kind of
been communicating throughout, but
I do
think our ramp-up with the communication
will start for phase three. You'll
start to see that
here over the next few months.
>>
I mean I think
--it probably goes without
saying, but that communication actually
is beneficial because when
you've been using something for a
long time, and it's maybe a
little tired, and you get something new,
you
think, oh, that's kind of cool. And
I think sort of that value-added piece
to their -- anyway, I think there's
an opportunity
there that would come from it.
>>
so he wants to
say we're hip and cool.
>> yes. I just
want to use my credit card on
the thing.
>> and
that definitely is on our future.
>>
that is the segueway that I thought
would be valuable to explain. I know
that we know what the open payment
system means, but what
does that mean to the user? And if
you could just talk
about that for a wee bet. That was
a great segueway, by the way.
>> certainly. We'll
go through the
phases, the different status, and
we'll certainly
talk about that.
>> sounds
good.
>> phase two. So phase
two is the
replacement of our validators, and
this includes equipment on frontrunner
and trax, and this is what you're
seeing here
in the lower left hand
corner is a new shiny
sleek
validator. They look really good. We
are
25% of the way installing these. So
there
will be about 370 of them in total,
so quite a
few that we need to go through. Also
pictured
here is one of our validators
being installed. This is a large
installation and requires strong
teamwork
across multiple departments, including I.t.,
network, facilities, fares, rel and
safety. Kenzie kunkle
as the project manager done an amazing
job coordinating
installations, and the teams are collaborating
very well together. So a big thanks
to
them for the success
we are seeing with these replacements. Brody
ricketts,
he is a uta field tech and has also
worked on the
stawls. He did share that customers
are excited about the new equipment, so
we
are seeing that
out on the platforms. And to follow
up, the
sound issue has been identified and shein
bachmann is working towards a solution
that we do expect
to roll out toward the end of the
month, so
that's great news. We also, just to
note,
have a brief pause on these installations. We're
resolving
a technical issue related to remote monitoring,
so our
ability to be able to see their performance, customers
are still able to tap, there is not an
issue with them tapping or us receiving
the data. If
there are instances of these being
offline or
the old not working, we do expect
a little bit of a
transition, but it is important that
we continue to know those
things so that we can troubleshoot
and
investigate as we
hear about them.
>> so focusing
on bus validators, you can see the blue,
again, the
blue shiny validator in this photo. We
are
nearing the finish line with bus validator
replacements, so we have depot, meadowbrook and
ogden garages
done, and we're currently waiting
for
an additional delivery of the
142 validators so we can finish these
installations,
and that's expected to be finished
next quarter. So those will
go pretty quickly. Couple of things
to note,
the leadership and support from I.t. Communication
bus
garage maintenance and fares operations have
all powered this milestone win, and
operators have commented
that the new validators are making
customers happy, whether
it's the look, the sound, the feel,
we're not sure,
but we do know happy customers make
happy operators. And
so this is a win-win. We have
received feedback from the operators
and taken that into account. I
just want to
highlight an example. When the validators
were first rolled out, there were
several concerns about the brightness and
the light being too
intense, and so kenzie and the
team immediately jumped on it which included
visiting
the buses at night, getting
photos, seeking more operator feedback
to understand the issue,
having the safety team do an
assessment, measure the brightness,
and this was immediately brought
to the attention of our vendor. A
temporary work around
was put in place, multiple meetings
were held to resolve
the issue and expedite a hot fix,
and
the validator brightness is now reduced,
and we're working
on aadaptive feature that will adjust
the brightness based on time of day,
so
that will be nice when we can actually
roll that out. But I
do want to emphasize that feedback
and
patience are two key elements
to successful collaboration and implementation of
this
project. When we get feedback from operators,
customers
or stumble upon issues that we didn't anticipate,
we are committed to resolving them,
and we are resolving
them, and it does take time. But I'm definitely
pleased
and proud of the team because everybody
is
going above and beyond with this project in
many instances. I just highlighted
a small one. And
so a big thanks for the team on
the bus validators.
>> if I could
just
add on this too, just to kind of pinpoint the
effort,
right, the planning stages that we
had,
we set a schedule, we communicated
that with, you know, our
team of shein bachmann and operations and
the different bus centers and then
coordinated with
those managers because each night
when the buses
came in, then the team would jump
on that, you know, it was
kind of like a nascar transition,
and everybody
was working around and changing it to
bring out this new
equipment so that the next day the
buses were out and ready to operate. And I
think that showed if there was any
pause, you
know, somebody could throw in a towel and
say
we need to stop, let's re-evaluate,
and once those,
you know, types of iterations
came through, the project moved, I would
say, very quickly. But it
had that kind of initial stage that
everybody needed to be
aware and then, you know, getting
that
feedback if we needed to
pivot.
>> I think sam poleon loved
the fact that
we learned from things and hopefully
makes it better, and maybe the vendor
learned some
things from it as well.
>> I also
want to acknowledge this morning the
excellent work that
has not only been clear to me and
many
of us here at uta but one that's been
highlighted by our vendor shein bachmann has noted
that uta's team
is one of the best they've worked
with here in north america. And specifically
here is what mark had to say, I've
been a part
of all projects in north america in
my current
role since 2017 and have not had a
customer site team
report back with the quality,
consistency and detailed information
that we have seen here at uta. We
appreciate it and look forward to seeing
the updates coming
in. A big thank you to those who have
train and given them the tools to
do so as well which
is what brian was referring
to earlier. Phase three, this is the
most transformative
phase, and it's just over the halfway
mark, as you
saw on the earlier slide. It is the
back end system
that will drive new functionality
on our ticket vending machines and our
validators, and these are the three
areas. This
will move us closer to our goal
of simplifying the customer fare experience. We
have
the fare pay that will be available
at
ticket vending machines, the ability to purchase
new
or reload old, as well
as check balances, in addition to
new screen flow, we'll
have a new integrated customer platform
that customers can log
in and have everything in one place,
and then
we'll also have new fare inspection devices
that the officers and fare inspectors
can use to support inspections
on the new back end software. I want
to share a few
more details about phase three. It's
a big lift.
>> can I ask a
question?
>> yes, absolutely. >> on the
fare pay and atm
--or the
tvm integration, does that reduce
the
reliance on retail operations to
load those? Does it
create better opportunities for user, including
bus users from the key transfer point? I
was just wondering
how do you see that evolving?
>> sure. This
is really big. I
mean, we've wanted, you know, these
tvms and vend
fair pay cards since we introduced
fair pay cards. So we are happy to
finally see this come to fruition. But
I think the experience
for the customers will definitely not
be scaling back on any of our
retailers. If anything, we'll probably
be boosting that network
to just make sure that all individuals can
get
good access to be able to
reload and purchase for pay cards. But
I
do think that it'll be easier for
at least our rail users when
they do get on the platform and realize
they want to either pay
as they go or they are reminded I
need
to add new funds and maybe didn't
remember to begin with. But
we also have a very robust online
you can do
that. So a lot of people either from their
phone
or when they're at home are able to
reload. So I think this
is just another option for us
to make it easier for the customer,
whether it's, you're right,
the transfer base for buses, but I
do see this a big
advantage for our rail users. So
phase three,
a big lift, but as this slide
--the little bus driving down the
road, we are moving towards
big wins, and we kicked off this phase
[ inaudible ]
there on the left in march of 2024. And
since then
we have completed the review and approval
of the design documents. And I just
want to give you an idea
of the magnitude of the design
documents. There were over 22
documents that averaged 55 pages
each. That's about four revisions
per document. If you
can imagine reading through it every
single time. And this equates to reading
the entire harry potter series
twice for each version. [
laughter ]
>> where is platform
dime and 3/4? Just need to know.
>>
so
put simply, the shear volume of documents,
versions and attachments highlight
not only just the workload but
the strength of the team
that carried through it. And, again,
this is an addition above
and beyond their current job responsibilities. So very
impressive. But we're
here, we're at the end of q3. The
development
has started, and we are on our
way to transition from our current
efc
back office system to our new
sche idt bachmann office system which will
happen next
year with those three key
system functionalities that
I mentioned. Any questions at this point?
>>
my understanding, monica,
is that this is really the bridge, that
phase three is the bridge to
what we're about
to talk about.
>> yes. >> yes. No. That's
right. Thank
you. And so when you ask about, you know,
what is the open payment or
mobile payment, and I'll say that
those are
kind of the same but also different,
right, because when
you think of open payment, you can
think of that physical
card, right, our credit cards we have
in our
wallet and certainly we've seen some transit
agencies that have adopted that and
utilized that. But many
users have
their cards also on their
phones. And so that there is that feature,
but then there is the feature of
our fair pay card going digital from
a physical form to a
digital form on the phone. And so
this past summer we actually
worked with a consultant, clever,
and we
had
a large roundtable, if you will, across
the agency. And getting
all that feedback of trying to understand,
like, okay, this is where our customers,
and I'll even
say some of our institutional customers
like students
now have their student I.d. On their phone, that
that
is the way of the future.
and so adapting and adopting to that
sounds great, we can just put
it on our phone and move on, but there's
a
lot to take into that. You know, there's
the transactional costs and the fees and
deploying that, working
with google and apple. So those design
conversations actually
are --have been happening and kind
of laying that
out, and we have actually in --in
the next couple weeks, we actually
have more
formal discussions on what those scopes are. But
essentially what we're moving towards
is having that multiple ways so
we minimize the dwell time, and when
people
have that functionality, whether it be
from their wallet or
from
the mobile wallet on their phone. Any
questions about the open payment?
>>
I think
--I agree with you. Figuring out how to
meet
that challenge is going to be a
huge thing
long term. So thank you.
>> certainly. >>
I
actually equail it with the fact that
we're getting
all of these level boarding vehicles, right? The
smoothness and the ease of usage,
that
just makes our system more efficient. So
I
just appreciate how that's coming
>>
no. Certainly. You know, again, you're
thinking of
the customer, and then you have to
think
about how do we deliver that service
as well
so that we're doing it effectively and
in
a -- you know,
a financially stewardship way,
if that's a word. Lastly, I just want
to finish here. We talked
about, you know, the communications
that we put out there. This
was an example of one when we were
on --
we put out on social media when
we were transitioning
to the new validators, and so taking
that proactive
messaging and trying to get out in
front of
the customers as much as we
could, again, that also meant, you know,
educating people internally, right,
letting them know about the transition, putting
the plan
in place that everybody could have
an input even
when we went active through those
transitions so that
we could regroup and react. So I would
say seeing how
the response has been from the public,
it seems
that
it's been a pretty effective transition. And
that concludes the presentation. If
there's
any final words.
>> any questions? I
take it you're having no buyer's remorse
at this
point with the system that you
chose?
>> definitely not,
no.
>> very excited about it. [
inaudible ] I'm excited about the next
phases coming
to fruition, so --
>> yeah. >> yeah. I just
want
to thank the entire team. This is a lot
of work. I mean, you can see
it, but it's going to have a wonderful end state
for us, and we're very excited. So
thank you.
>>
thank you, jeff.
>>
thanks for the
great presentation. With that we'll go
to item b which is
the uta insurance program and renewals. And
looks like
you don't get to go anywhere, brian.
>>
yes. Now
I'm here to talk about
the exciting world
of insurance and risk. Whoa. Thank
you. So brian reeves, associate chief financial
officer. So as
you may know or recall,
we have a board policy
that addresses our managing of our risk
and called it the risk transers, so
the risk management area. So, number
one, we're here to give you an annual
update on our program
and how we've been managing that. Also
we'll
address the public officials errors
and
owe missions insurance in that we have
procured that, so we can show that
is
in place. And then, of course, discuss
the other insurance products that
we have procured to
put
in place for protecting the
authority. So the
first policy is addressing our public
officials errors
and omissions insurance. This is an
annual renewal. We've had this policy
in place for a
number of years now. So this was a
pretty --I'll say pretty easy one
to secure as far as
we had no change in premium which
was great, as we'll see there were
some changes in premiums that affected some
of our other policies
that I'll talk about. But
this one in particular still maintained
the
same premium. Also having that first
policy limit at $2 million,
and then, of course, our blanket policy
to pick up
any excess up to $10 million.
>> can
I just ask
a quick question on the previous? I'm,
like, my
brain kind of just froze
on this one. Public entity, what's
d&o?
>>
directors and
officers.
>> directors. Thank you. Appreciate that. >>
sure. So this is our
--a
look at our blanket excess policy. We
did experience, as you can see,
a pretty significant increase of excess
policy premium. Part
of it was related to some good
actions that happened here, right? We
saw a tremendous growth in our ridership
which
is a bob. We appreciate
that. But, unfortunately, that also enhanced
our
risk profile so that the chance of occurrences
--and we did see that occur. Also
on top of that we had
some transes going on that's outside of
uta,
and that is just
the market appetite for taking
these types of excess risks. The lead
carrier, munich reed has been
a big
player in that, but they've experienced, I'd say,
a couple of incidents that have
been greater than what they had anticipated. And
so last year
they took a look at their business,
and they actually made the choice
to actually cut
the amount
of coverages they were applying. So
to pivot and for us to
manage through that, we actually -- we're
still able
to secure -- initially they told us
a much lower limit, but we were
able to commence them to keep their limits
up to about
$8 million, and then we placed a second
-- or
another tier above
that with a new carrier, I'll call
it metis, and
that is more
of a structured insurance product. So
that one, they are from a player
that I would
say is fairly new into the insurance space,
but they've
been managing risk through pools I
think since it was the
early '90s for
a lot of municipalities and government
agencies. So they
understand the risk profile for government entities. For
us
and what I felt
prudent was instead of transitioning
our entire blanket, we thought it would be
a
good approach to learn more about
them
and their structure. While they check
all the boxes as
far as what is substantial coverage,
it's
a new entity. And so still
having munich reed in between there,
they were willing to
increase their limit to what they originally
proposed but then putting
an
additional layer on top of that. And
the next
noted increase I would also point
out is in their railroad liability. Again,
the positive effects
of increased ridership was, you know,
something we're
all for, but, of course, that
increases your risk profile again. This
is an
area that has a couple of the
market for other transit agencies. There's
been
a push to increase limits
which has pushed up against opportunities
for us to procure that coverage. Now,
I can
save our $100 million limit is probably
--is in a solid place,
that we are able to still continue
to be able
to secure that coverage, but
now you're competing against other transit
agencies across
the nation, right, that have had increased
demands of putting out more coverages. So
we then, of
course, have to complete compete
with that premium. So we did see
an increase
across the board. Again, we've continued to educate. There
was a higher increase that was being
proposed, and so we were able to
work with those carriers, educate
them on how we manage
that risk and how our operation safety
plans are
in place and respond to those
and how we
transfer those risks across different
organization. The
next increase that we noted, and this
was
more of a normalization. This
was in our workers' compensation area. This
is procured
to the utah local government trust. And
so the
first million we manage internally,
right? We
have our self-insurance retention
because we own
that risk, we are required to purchase
an excess coverage, so we have $2
million in excess. I will
say last year's did not -- was not
increased. I would say it
was probably -- this is probably a
normalization of them kind of reunderwriting. We
kind of got lucky last year that
they did not increase our premium,
but we're in a catchup place. There
has been increase in wages across
the organizations,
so that has contributed to obviously
a higher dollar
amount that you would be exposed to, and
also we had some significant claims
this year that heightened some
of that.
>> brian, I'm just going to insert
one thing
there that's -- I
was approached about a month ago by
local
governments trust to
represent special districts on their
board. They've not --
that action doesn't take place
until november. I've reviewed it with
folks. Obviously
if we have procurement that
comes before us, I'll recuse myself. And
so I'm not in
that position now, but just more from
a disclosure standpoint.
>>
thank you for sharing that.
>>
there's an issue I need to separate
myself
from, I'm happy to do that. But it
hasn't
taken place yet.
>>
okay. Thank you. I'll try to move
through some more of the --
all the other coverage. This is our
property
liability which is also procured through the
local government
trust. We
have a billion dollars in coverage
there,
benefit from a slight decrease
in that premium, but probably close
to
near [ inaudible ] for
that. Next here is our cyber. And
I would say there is
two things that contributed to our decrease
in that premium, part of which is
the programs that we have in place
as
far as updating patches and a
very proactive I.t. Department, making
sure that our system
is secure. And then coupled with the
fact that
this space probably had a lot of
growth as far as on
the insurance space, and so with that
increase in
supply,
we benefited from that decrease
in pricing. Vanpool is kind of interesting. We
actually had a nice improvement in
the premium, but when I
--we were pivoting
with our excess coverage because that was
also,
we were able
to position the vanpool separately
from how we were pricing our blanket. And
so
even though we had the increase on
the
blanket, we actually were
able to increase our
limits significantly for the vanpool
liability. That also added that
new carrier on top of that. So, in
fact,
I want to say the limit here to munich
is $5 million, and the new carrier came
in with an additional $2 million. Overall
reduction in that premium risk there. Again,
another well-managed program. So we
were
able to demonstrate that
in reduction. This is our railroad
protective liability for small contractors. So
we have for different contractors
that may not
have the ability to precure these larger
policies, we can
offer them kind of
like a pass-through and so that they
--for a period of time,
they may be near a rail, within 50
feet, they can access
this insurance so that it's only for that
particular period of time as opposed
to some --if
they were to buy it themselves, it
would
an annual premium or exposed risk,
but that
may not be their primary business. Fiduciary
liability,
had a slight
increase. This is
for all our pension risks
as far
as the -- risk-related activities there. Crime
liability. This is due
to any financial loss like embezzlement. This
was kept in
with no change. Terrorism
liability, we actually had a decrease. Again,
this was just more
I would say about the market capacity,
was able
to lend to that improvement. And then
here it
gives you just the overall breakdown. So if you
look at it, you can see our --you
know, premiums this year were almost
$350,000 more than what they
were of last year that
we presented. And as I mentioned, the
railroad liability
was a large --about half
of that contribution, also with the excess
liability. The other
ones you can see the kind of small
minor
ins and outs of
those total dollars.
>> when you think
of the property casualty
demands placed on the industry over
the last couple
years, it's actually pretty amazing
that
those rates have stayed relatively
in a reasonable place. I
mean, with the exception of the liability
coverage which I don't know
how you get around.
>> yeah. No. I
mean, you
can see the different pinpoints of
risk management, right,
as far as all those different areas
so each one has its own nuance. But, yeah, you're
right. As far as on the
whole, you know, we're
still maintaining. I'm just amazed
at cyber
not being an increase. That is I think
--I would have thought that would
have gone the other
way. So that's fantastic.
>> we hear
a lot
of headlines, right, of different
large systems that
are being accessed with private information. I
think the
response time and the management of
that
has improved greatly so that we're probably
seeing
more headlines than actual pain, financially speaking.
all
right. Thank you.
>> yeah, thank you. I
assume no other questions
for brian? Okay. Thanks for that update,
brian. Why don't we
go forward with next item, and
then we'll maybe take a break. The
summary of
the series 2025 bond issuance and
welcome,
vi miller, as well as
brian baker and then, of course, brian reeves. Vi,
am I
looking to you first?
>>
no. We have a
plan. Brian, brian, vi.
>> good
morning, trustees. Brian reeves, chief
associate financial officer here to
talk to you about the conclusion of our
series 25 bond issuance that we started
off this year. So just to
give you kind of
the high-level summaries, we issued on
july 29th, the series
2025 sales tax refunding
bonds. We generated $492 million in
par amounts. If you look
at the overall yield for the transactions,
we
had an all-in yield of just under
4%, and that goes across
our different maturity schedule of 2026
to 44. And this
was the purpose of
this financing three-fold, right,
as far as funding
two finance projects, capital projects,
the light
rail vehicle and the administrative
building. This also had an
opportunity that came about as far
as a tender,
and then,
of course, the refunding
of
with tax-exempt opportunity for refunding taxable
bonds. So overall how did we do? Our
debt
service coverage is still in a
great position. The senior leaned
at 2.9 in our total lien coverage,
so this looks at our sales tax coverage that
we
collect, and then it goes out
across the entire debt service and
looks at the -- where I'd see the
highest point. So the 2 1/2 times
represents that
overall way out in the future. And then
our total
debt outstanding, you can see that breakdown
between our subordinate and
senior lien. We actually refunded
and refinanced some
of our subordinate liens and moved
them up into
that senior lien position. You get
better pricing when you are
able to do that.
>> so the figure's
been thrown around a few times about
what our debt is
and obviously you're paying interest
on it, but roughly
we have
about $2
billion left remaining?
>> principal outstanding,
yeah. And that as you can see is --
we pay off
portions of that each year, and that's
what's captured in
that debt service of that principal
and interest.
>> can I just clarify
that that's
$2 billion?
>> what's that? >> $2
billion.
>> I
did say billion, yeah. But it's
always good to clarify when I say
something.
>>
and then not to steal
vi's thunder because she'll be able to
share her results, but getting
right to it, we saved through this
transaction $18 million and
that was represented about a 4% mpv
savings for the transaction. And so
--but, yeah. As you
can see the debt service, that
small line there shows you what the
previous, and so we were able
to kind of sculpt it and
share that across our --so it would
have
a minimal impact on our ratios, and
that 2343
and 44 which is where we still have a
small amount of
debt outstanding is where we put bigger
portions of that which makes
sense when you consider the
assets that we were funding for.
>>
I'd mentioned --or you mentioned it. So
10 years
ago, you still had about $2 billion worth
of debt. You actually had
more than that, and more
than half of it was subordinate
lien which has less favorable cost
for investors and cost you more because
that
is what fit with the coverage ratios
you had in place in order to be
able to fund the capital projects
you were doing. And so it's fun
to look at that chart that was just
shown that shows that subordinate
lien portion becoming smaller and smaller,
and when we talked to the
rating agencies, essentially we don't
see
a time where you'd need to issue subordinate
lien debt in
the future, and so that will slowly
go away. And
as that number becomes smaller, you
might get an upgrade
to the ratings on your subordinate
lien because it's so overcapitalized
based on how little there
will be remaining, and it'll just
eventually converge with your senior
lien because you're in a much, much healthier
financial
position now which is great.
>> although,
brian, you
just depressed me
because it's like the accuary --or
the
payment on your home mortgage, when
you said 10
years ago we still had $2 billion,
and now we
still have $2 billion.
>> you had
a good bit
more than that.
>> okay. >> but you have
borrowed for other things
in the intermittent time.
>> that's
true. That's true.
>> in fact, I
think you peaked out at like
2.3 or 4.
>> okay. Thank you. >> so
just
to recap as well the timing, right? We
came
in april as a discussion point, and
then we went and
met with the
different state finance commission,
introducing them, the refunding and
the
barnes that we were talking on. And
being that there was new money
attached to this, we did have
a public comment period that took us
through the
summer, and then, of course, then
you had
a tender that was
being participated simultaneously
with that. So we had that
notification period. So a lot of steps
for, --
you know, obviously for transparency but
also
making sure that we're educating through the
--the public through this process. And
so we
reached to that culmination
on
july 25th, we completed that transaction.
>> as this process
began, and we talked to you about
what was going on, you probably heard
us say a couple of times that, really,
the absolute
rates that you were paying were
less important for the refinancing portion
than what was the
spread between what the treasury rate and
the mmd was and that the wider that
spread was,
the better it was for the transaction. And
so from
the time we started talking to you,
things got -- you
know, we first showed numbers, and
numbers got a little bit worse, and
then the numbers
got a little bit worse, but right
before the transaction happened leading
into
the transaction, we actually
had a lot of positive momentum in
our favor. And so that got
us back to where we had again
a very healthy refinancing with great opportunities
there. And
if you look at the ratios where they
are now,
they are less favorable than they
were
at the time of the transaction which
is good. This shows specifically the ratios
and kiep of how they changed, both
that top line, the green
one is over the 20-year period and
the
10-year period is the lower one. The
10-year period was more important
to your transaction, and that's the
one
that actually you can see came down
more. We've seen
that also in the last little while
with just interest rates in
general. You've seen the 10-year
is sticking more, generally lower, and
the 30-year treasury
has drifted up more and has moved more. And
so those are
both favorable things that contributed
to the positive outcome of the transaction. And
then these were
the rates. So over the
life of the transaction, we typically
have an
upward sloping yield curve. That's
not exactly what the treasury yield
curve looks like right now, but when
you're borrowing
in the municipal market, the tax exempt,
you
have higher rates out further, so
the green
level, the green line is what
aaa, mmd, meaning the bond buyer
index that is pure aaa general obligation,
so everything that is
different from being a pure
general obligation, full, faith and credit
aaa, you usually
pay a slight spread above that. Uta
over
the years has paid a not negligible,
but a
very small spread to aaa, and we feel
like we got
excellent pricing from wells fargo
is the underwriter on the date that
the
transaction happened, you
can see that those are relatively
consistent. Typically they're a
little bit closer in the early years,
and then they tend to
spread out in the later years. But
I think we did a
good job of keeping them in line.
>>
if I could just add to what I think
it
can be somewhat hard to see the difference
in that line, and that is
kind of part of
the point, right? The benchmark is
a
aaa rated. And so seeing how close our
-- along the
point of that curve where we ended
up pricing
really demonstrates the financial strength
that the market --
the investor market views of uta. And
so that we
were
very pleased with that outcome there.
>> you know, I know we don't
-- this is just a uta thing, but I
think when
you look at the broaders and some
other transit agencies, this is not
what they can say at all. And I think
as we continue to refine not just
what it is that we are doing as
an agency but also in
partnership with the communities and
those investments in sales tax, that is
going to be a continued value add as we
go out to this market moving forward
or
paying it off, whatever that
looks like.
>> we didn't extend
the debt horizon, so this debt really is
--
am I looking at that right, 19-year
debt?
>> that is correct. And I'll
be talking that in a bit.
>> which
is a lot better position on these
newer
vehicles than
the original ones purchased, yeah. So
--
>> so just to
summarize, right, that we our results
were fantastic for this bond deal. And
it was in three parts, right? So we
had
--we issued sales tax revenue bonds. We
also did a tender,
and then we did a refunding. And
with the sales tax revenue and refunding
bonds,
the new series that we did, the
par amount, as brian said, $4 noot.5 million,
we had a premium
of $44.3 million with 5% coupon rate. All
in, what's important, I think, is
to
recognize that point
that beth just made and that made
as well
is that call option is going to be
here in another
10 years, and
then we'll have another opportunity
to refinance. And one of the things,
what brian baker was speaking
to earlier about the fact that, yes,
our total debt
has been around the $2 billion mark for years,
it
has gone up and down in some areas, but
the
thing is that as we do this work,
as we continue to refinance
our debts, as we continue to bake
savings into
our forecast amount while still investing
in our infrastructure, we are doing
a wonderful
balancing act here. And I think
that's important to speak to is that,
yes, we have this large debt,
but look at everything
we're doing with it. And
that is something that wells fargo
remarked about how
--the strength of uta's
bond program and
also what we do, right? That's why
these rating
agencies continue to give us high
ratings is because we are doing
well with balancing our
debt and keeping up our asset
management piece, as well as our infrastructure. So,
of course, with the
tender and
the refunding we sent out for
$980.4 million, we
got a 27% success rate. We tender
$251.2
million at
par, and we refunded $203.7
million in debt. And right now that meant
that -- you heard
brian say earlier we had a net present
value savings of $18
million. And that savings is about
4%. So one
of the things I
wanted to highlight
was our investor makeup. And we were
in new york
-- you know, brian had a day getting there,
but
we were in new
york, the investor names scroll across the
screen
was really a highlight of, again,
the strength
of uta and how we have these
major investors
interested in investing in uta. You'll
see
blackrock financial, we had goldman sachs,
jpmorgan, vanguard group, all of these
are major investors in the bond markets. And
the fact
that they wanted to invest in uta
says
something about
what we're doing here. We were oversubscribed
by
almost four times which is
amazing, right? So we had 68
institutional investor orders, most
of it was in
our smas, our separately managed
accounts. These are high net worth investor
groups,
and then, of course, our
proprietary trading, that was another
19.5%. So
really the kinds of investors that
are willing --these are high money
investors, and so
the fact that they're interested in investing
in
uta and that we were so oversubscribed, we
put it out there,
we put the offer out there, and everyone
came in and said, yes,
we
want to do business with you. And,
again, as we
alluded to on the
rating agency views, we are not going
past
2044. And even though we continue
to rebalance,
we are staying to that. We
have not extended past 2044. We've,
again,
had some ups and downs within
that time horizon, but
we are continuing to save and
refinance when possible. And so that
mixture of debt is a balanced debt,
and we continue to be stable. What
brian baker
was speaking to about our subordinate
liens, that,
again, every single rating agency
has rated us
as stable in that area, and
we are at at least aa. So all good
things. We have a strong
tax revenue performance, supported
by our size, maturity and
diversity. I I wanted to
highlight that from s&p global. And,
really,
we continue to look for opportunities. Wells
fargo has
for the last
two years been bringing us fantastic options
and opportunities to go back
to the market and save
us money. So appreciate working with them. I
just want to
add that to the record. Any questions?
>>
I
don't know if this question is for
brian --brian baker or --
we've done a lot of tendering. Is
that market going to
be
there in three years or does it depend
--and is
there much left to realistically tender?
>>
the best bonds
to take advantage of the tender option were
the
taxable bonds that you had with
really, really low coupons where investors
were -- I think that slide
showed that the average investor,
you paid them 88
cents on the dollar to buy their bonds
back because rates had gone
down, and they were under water. And
so
we have refinanced
a lot of your outstanding taxable bonds. And so
we'd have
to look and evaluate whether --I doubt
we would bring you a tender opportunity
on those old set
of bonds and just say let's just try
it again
and see what happens, but when you
do
borrow again, we could re-evaluate
and see does it make sense to
ask again, do we think on some of these
you might have had enough bonds
change hands or your time has passed,
and you might get a different
reception. But that was --
it is interesting --the tenders were set
up by
you taking advantage of the opportunity
to
refinance debt that wasn't yet callable
at taxable rates when
taxable rates got really, really low. And
because you had
those done, wells fargo brought the opportunity
and said, hey,
by the way, because you have
these really, really low taxable coupon
bonds, you could do this, and investors
would
unlock the call feature and let you buy them
back
now, you know, at a deep discount,
and that would save
you money again. And we've used
a lot of that up. And as demonstrated,
even
though you got good responses at about 27%,
there are some of those bonds that
are just not going to be tendered
at any point because of the
types of investors that want to own
them and
hold them until they pay
off.
>> thank you. Any other questions? >>
no.
>> thanks, everyone, for
your efforts on that.
>> thank you. >>
so great outcome.
>> thank you. >> well,
why
don't we take a short
break and come
back roughly
at around 10:40 or so.
having just completed our bond discussion,
we'll
move to
a discussion about the
revised 2026, 2030 five-year capital plan
overview. Welcome both jared scarbrough
as well as dan hofer. Jared.
>> thank
you. Jared
scarbrough chief capital services
officer here with
dan hofer
to
go over the revised 2026-2030 five-year
capital plan. After the budget
workshops that were held last month,
trustee holbrook, I'm
not sure if
I'm using this word correctly, was it
scalpelling?
>> thank
you for creating a
new word? I appreciate that so much. Scalpelling,
that's
correct.
>> refinements that have
been made
since the last budget working session. So
dan
is
going to walk through the numbers
here this morning
in a little bit more detail, and then we'll
go to
a summary at the end here.
>>
thanks, jared. For the record, dan
hofer, director of capital programming and
support. As jared mentioned, we're
here to show you
some of the changes that have been
brought into the five-year
plan since
we talked last month about it. So
this first
part of the presentation we'll go
through and just
will highlight the changes
that
had occurred to the projects. So the
first one was a
request to update the project
named to the farmington station ped bridge. That
was done. There
was no change to
the budget. The rev238,
that's the light rail vehicle replacement project. There
was some
contract milestones that were updated, and
so we basically preprogrammed another
$700,000 that would
have been paid this year forward to
next year. Preprogramming also occurred
on the
clearfield trail project. They think
that has
potential to slip in to
next year. The layton station improvements, that
one we removed
the funding for right
now. We left the project, but if more progress
is made on that project,
we can add
funding to it to progress it
along. The ogden
fueling system replacement added
$85,000 to that
one. And then continuing on, the ici214
automatic
passenger counter, that one had
a reduction of $1 in
2027. The reason being they think they'll
finish that phase --
you know, they'll finish the current phases
they're working on
next year and then
evaluate that future
project moving forward. Ici226, also
they removed
-- asked to remove $2 million
in 2027 for that as well. So that
one they're
planning on finishing it next year,
so that's the
reason for that.
>>
so is the cost
less or did 2026 get
increased?
>> 2026 in this version
stayed the same. We are going to increase
it later,
but it'll be from a preprogramming
of this year moving forward. So
I think this is mostly
a contingency value that was held there,
so --
>>
can I ask a question?
>> yeah, please. >>
and I'm
sorry, I was a little slow on this. But
I just wanted
to ask you, like, what are the time
frames? Do
any of these dollar figure impacts,
like for the
farmington ped bridge or for the clearfield trail,
do any of those get impacted as far
as timing or is that
at this stage
still unchanged?
>> yeah. At this
stage they're unchanged. The clearfield project
is nearing completion, so this is just
in case it'll lead into next year. But
no cost increase
on those two
that you mentioned.
>> okay. Thank
you.
>>
uh-huh. Other changes that
had occurred also, the I.t. Managed
reserve project was removed. That
represents
a five-year total figure for that. The
fare box portion --
>> I presume if
an issue comes up, then
we would just
look
at our contingency --
>> yes. >> management. Okay. >>
the fare system project,
we removed the
fare box portion of that, so
that gave a $3.6 million
reduction. The 5310 projects, we lumped these
all together in one
and kind of showed it as a general lump
sum
there. But the timing of those
awards occurs kind of in between that sweet
spot of when
we're getting ready for the budget
workshops, and so now
they've gone in and reconciled
those projects with their award amounts, and
another thing we're doing is instead
of programming that out
into future years, we're going to
move that into the current
year so they have that funding available
to them, and they can
use it there. So that added
about $4.3 million. But those are
all pass-through funds.
>> I was
gonna ask, are those grant funds only
--
>> yes. >>
--or is there a local match?
>> there
could be a very small local in there,
but the
local majority of all pass-through funds.
>>
the
enhancement, that's mostly payback
grant.
>> so here's
some more exchanges that we did. I'll
just go through these really quickly. Added
$210,000, this
is to the wheel turning machine. That
was a
result of a tariff impact letter that
we got from them. The
optical detection project was removed. The
one-time innovative
mobility zone
funds project was removed. The one-time
mobility
solutions for capital expenses
was lowered by $338,000. The
big one was the rev233 commuter rail
vehicle procurement for used, that
was the
purchase of the san diego cars. Sounds
like the strategy has changed on
that, and so that project has been
removed.
>> and so was this anticipated revenue
to
be received or to be expended to renovate,
I guess?
>> it would be to expend
it. Right, yeah.
>>
I was just trying to
figure out what rev stands for.
>>
yeah.
>> looks like
a revenue.
>> general code
for vehicles usually.
>> can I ask
a question? Because technically the
vehicle procurement
is already completed, but I'm just
curious as to why it's under
that title. Is that just because it's connected
to that vehicle,
even though the proare current is already
done? I just wanted to
understand how that --
>> anticipated
as part of the procurement that
we'd be doing this work.
>> okay. Thank
you. That's
why it's
tied in that way. Thanks.
>>
yeah. On the meadowbrook electrification
project, we've preprogrammed $500,000
from this year forward to
next year
to help with the design contract there,
anticipating
completion of that contract
in march. Here's
some other changes. The lab building
demo and parking lot, we
moved to $375,000 forward from this budget to
next
year to allow for the paving,
they've been working through the design,
and that's taken longer than
anticipated.
>> so we'll
see gravel through the winter?
>>
probably. Yeah.
>> my
shoes are not happy about that.
>> very
easy
to clear snow off of gravel.
>>
yeah.
>> it gives
us the good
country feel.
>> yes. Next
year we have preprogrammed $760,000
for the salt lake
hq office
building to finish their schematic
design. The 5600 west project, this
one basically what happened is
the opening of that service was pushed
back a
year, so they were able
to reshuffle the schedule on that. And
so this represents that where we've
added --
where we didn't add, but we
put $3.9 million nor in next year's
to help with some construction there.
>>
can
I
ask a question on
this project? There was in state law
on
the enacting of the salt lake county fifth
fifth, a portion that went to 5600
west. Are
those numbers --is that revenue coming
--potentially coming to us, is it
coming through the ttf to fund additional pieces? I just
wasn't sure how --I can't
really remember the fraction of it,
but it allowed
--and when the thing got enacted I
would
imagine it enabled it. And I just wondered
how we're looking
at those dollars or generally even
look at them. To be
honest, I'm not sure what our options
are there.
>> I would
have to get back to you on that. I
mean, I know that they're there, they're
authorized, but how that money's going
to come to us is
--
>> yeah. Maybe we have to get
our legislative friends to help us figure
that out or our friends in the gopb office. It
would be good to figure that out.
>>
I'm going to check
as this discussion
is going on.
>> all
right. The rail replacement program,
we added $2.25 million to that project
to next year, and then so in
order to do that, we took a little
bit from the great crossing replacement
program, and we were able to
add some additional formula funds
to that to
make up that number. The grade crossing
replacement project
speaks
to the reduction I just mentioned
there.
>> so did
you not do the grade crossing projects?
>>
we'll
still do them. I think there's
$2 million in that budget still. We've
done a really good
job keeping up on those, and so
at this time rather put the
money towards the rail replacement effort
there.
>>
we'll be doing two larger ones
next year still, 621 south and
600 south. 600 is in need
of repair, as well as 2100. 2100 was
also chosen because
it is directly linked to other shutdowns
we'd
be doing in that area.
>> yeah. >>
so instead of having
three shutdowns there, we shuffled around
to just have one do all the
work.
>> at the same time. >> in that
same area,
yeah.
>> okay. That makes sense. >>
I think we need to
advertise that a lot or talk about
that because
I --from the city perspective, when
I was
with the city, that was always the biggest
complaint
people had is, like, you just barely
laid
down the asphalt, and now you're tearing
it up
again. So like
that we are
articulating that.
>> thank you. So
this should be the
last of the project adjustments. But
the top
one, the facilities rehab and replacement,
there's a pretty major
floor project going on at midvale
right now expected to
go into quarter one,
so we preprogrammed $260,000
forward to
finish that work up. Msp270 added
about
$140,000 to keep those numbers consistent, so
they have that to
work with. And then just some general
items that you
may have seen in the previous documents
but just wanted to
call them out here, we removed
the yellow highlights on the grant-dependent
projects. So the labels are still
there, but the highlights are gone. And
then we'll talk to these
a little bit later, but
we replaced the temporary np project
codes with the
actual project codes
that they'll have moving forward pending approval.
>>
np stands for what?
>> just new project. >>
new projects,
okay.
>> can I ask you on the
previous slide?
>> yeah. >> there
was
the transit signal priority onboard
units. Is that for
a brt project or is it for just general
buses, if you could just clarify that?
>>
general, general buses.
>> thank you. >>
and
then as part of that general items,
not that
--the descriptions of the projects themselves,
is that what you're referring to? There
was a
conversation about maybe aside from
you,
dan, nobody would understand what
the project was, that's
not to speak that you went, you're
just
so detailed and in depth. And just
from the general public perspective.
>>
yeah. I've been talking with
jan about that. So we won't
see any in today's discussion, but
we'll
visit with the project managers and
see if there's
some that we can look to modify
before the end of the year, so have
those.
>> that would
be great. You know, I just think
it helps everybody understand
what the project actually is.
>> yeah. >>
and so anyway.
>> no. Thank you. Yeah. So
these are
the new projects that were added. These
are the
same ones that you've seen before. So
I won't go through
them in general, but the main point
of this
slide is just to highlight the new
codes
and what the previous
ones were in case there was some going back and
wanting to
check and see what they were. So these
next few slides have just
like the new codes
in the plan moving forward. I'll go
through slowly. If
you have any questions, let me
know.
>> the escalator replacement,
we talked
about it, but we made some observations. It's
at the end of
its useful life?
>> yes. >> and there
a way to protect it better
in the weather? I mean, is that --
or is it
fine and that's just how fast they wear
out?
>>
go ahead, jared.
>> I know that's
something we're looking in to
right now. But I know
there was some previously rating issues
with the escalator, maybe not being rated for
the outdoors, something
that's being looked at now this
time around is actually getting the
appropriate rating to install and
when
this is addressed.
>> okay. >> yeah. They
were rated indoor
when they were originally put in. Am
I
correct?
>> yeah. That is correct. >>
so we need to --and that's part of
what we're looking at in that replacement,
so that
number we're still looking at, and we'll
probably be getting back to you on
that one because
we need to have it rated outdoor.
>>
yeah. That
makes a lot more
sense. Does that include the general maintenance
of
the area or just the escalator
replacement itself? I'm just curious
because there's a lot of
other areas that probably could be
improved.
>> just
the escalators
on this one, yeah.
>> thanks. >> uh-huh. Here's
the
next slide for the new projects.
question?
>> on the low or
no emissions battery electric buses,
we just got a notification
of an award, is that those? These
are ones
that were
already in the works? Remind me
what --and does low no mean
we're going after natural gas? Because
I knew we were sort of avoiding
electric, at least as far as a grant
proposal goes.
>>
I believe that that
project number --and alternative,
vi, for this one, for
the low no, you just nod your head,
that's at
teens
zero are the buses that we --[
inaudible ] is that correct?
>> yes. >>
so, yes, that is
correct. We'll have to make that correction.
>>
is that
--so 15
buses in to $21 million
is 1.4 per vehicle, is that due to
tariffs, et cetera, is
that an issue or --
>> or did you
get more
buses when you went to
natural gas?
>> that was
the electric price before.
>> okay. >> so
we'll have to look
at the c&g, but we'll check with the grants
team to see
if any of the award amount has
changed,
and if so, update it accordingly.
>> can I ask
on the planning grants, there was a
question about --half
of it
was
sort of obligated in their planning numbers,
others have --or just studies. And
I'm trying to remember from our discussion
whether there
was ever an explanation to what those
studies would actually be.
>>
if you could give
us a moment, I'll make sure that we
--you
want to -- do you have the answer
or
would you like to bring
in the call?
>> [ inaudible ] >> I
just was trying
to get an idea of what we were studying because at
one
time there was -- at least in the
preliminary stuff
I'd seen, there was a large number
for the 10-year plan. And
so I was, like, are we spending that
much money to go back and,
like, totally revamp our 10 year,
and I was just trying to understand
that a little bit.
>>
we'll get that answer in a moment.
>>
if
you have it, kim.
>>
sorry. I haven't used these microphones yet. Kim
shanklin, chief
of staff for the record. So
for the 2026 capital expenses for
planning,
there's a day finding
plan creation of $600,000. Ly
have to get clarification on what
our bsrp plan is for $100,000 and
just general planning studies for
the 300,000. And we were planning
to
send the board a list
of all of those. We have that being
compiled, but I don't
have it here for you right here at
this moment.
>> that's
okay for this moment. But if we could
get
that, that would
be beautiful.
>> absolutely. Yeah. >>
bsrp, right, bus speed and reliability program,
so that's
--
>> oh. >> --the financially efficient ways
to move
our buses along without major
capital investments working with
local partners like udot to utilize either
shoulders or new ways to get through
the
intersection quicker with priorities
on
our buses. So that's what that
project means.
>> okay. You get the
snickers bar today, jared,
for not only knowing the acronym but
being able to explain it.
>> I had
a question on the floor restoration
for
mount ogden. This is for the maintenance phase
or --right,
is that correct? I see
andreas nodding.
>> uh-huh. >> all
right. Sorry. Is
everyone done? Good to move on? Okay. All right.
>>
if we can hold
for just one second because
I want to go back to 5600
west.
>> please. >> so 5600 west funds
would come out of counting the first
class highway funds, and those
funds would come from the fifth
fifth, 10% over the first three years goes
to
construct and express bus facility
on
5600 west, 90% into the county of
the
first class infrastructure bank fund. So
we'll track that with the county
as those funds come in.
>>
they go --they are now directed through
the state. I
mean, the county imposed it, but
then they gracious --the state graciously
took it over after that.
>>
right. We'll
have to
apply for those funds.
>> okay. So
gone through the adjustments, now
just show the
impacts to the total numbers
overall. So here's the yearly breakdown in
the
overall plan. Overall there wasn't
a big change in terms
of a net change, but with the new
five-year plan total, we're looking
at about 100 --
or $1 billion,53,400,000 as
the total
plan amount. Next years budget
being $331,7 38,000, and then the
sources are listed out after that
total column
going left to right. But to
highlight the big ones, our grants
makes
up the largest portion of the
five-year plan amount at a little
over
$343. The uta portion is about $271.5 million. And
then bonding makes up about $169.7
million. So
this is just the more graphical
version of the table we just viewed. As
you
can see, again, the total is
$1,053,404,000 and shows a little
bit
of magnitude in terms of the sources
there. [ inaudible
] we did add the ttif
funds as its own separate source. That's
the first time we've done that.
>>
and you should show it this way, but
I
think --I was just thinking
when I looked at
the $271 million, and even though the
bond funds
are the source of funding, the reality
is we get to pay,
you know, from the last discussion,
we
pay for that too.
>> yeah. >> so if
--I mean, I only
think this is probably when people ask,
well, what's uta got into it? We probably
should
figure out a way
to say we actually, up, are doing,
what,
$300 or $400 over the course of that
time. But definitely this
is a great way
to track it. I'm not suggesting that somehow
--whatever
our real dollars coming out of our
--
>> especially when talking
to our state partners and comparing that.
>>
yeah.
>> like we do
still have skin in the game where
obviously --
>> yeah, significant
skin.
>> --going to
pay it
out over 19 years. Yeah.
>> thank
you. So seen
this slide before. Not much has
changed overall since we visited in
august about this. But
here's the funding amounts by project
categories. Just to highlight again
that our vehicles makes
up the significant majority of our five-year
plan,
just coming in at under $515
million over the five years.
>>
and, dan, this
one --
this doesn't include whatever vehicles
udot
procures as part of the frontrunner
2x?
>> I don't believe
so.
>> that's correct. >> okay. These
are just --
at some point we'll have nine new
car sets that
we get
to maintain,
right? Yeah. Okay.
>> I appreciate
the add-on.
>> so
seen this slide before
as well, but our repair efforts are a
major focus, they've been a major
focus in the past and continue to
be, and they
make up about 73%
of the five-year plan totals.
>> can
I just
ask you on that, I completely
agree with state of repair. I think
you repair your infrastructure in
a timely way just
to maintain it and keep it in
good working order. But when we have
some of
these larger projects that we're trying
to get accomplished,
like six south, 2100, et cetera, does that
then over time change that percentage
at all of state
of good repair or do other things crop up
that have
that same cost structure, if not the
same exact project? Does that make
sense?
>> yeah. I'll take a shot,
and let me know if
I didn't answer it correctly.
>> thanks. >> but
we kind of
fluctuated I think between roughly
65% and 75% of the budget or plan amounts
over the last three or four
years. So it'll definitely always
be there to some degree. It's
a little higher right now because
we have a major light rail vehicle
replacement project that's
going in or a major facilities replacement
project that's going in right now. So
those might skew it a
little more to show that greater percentage
than what
we might see where we're just kind
of
in a maintain and standard maintenance
where it'll
be about the 65% that we've seen,
so
--
>> dan alluded to it, and correct
me if I'm
wrong here, dan, but this is not just infrastructure
gr. So you'll
see a lot of these numbers
are related to
vehicles as well.
>> okay. Yeah. And
that's helpful because,
I mean, it completely makes sense to
do that investment strategy, in state
of good repair, but I would imagine
when you address those big ticket
items that it would then fluctuate. But
I
didn't think 65%, I thought we'd are
more on
the 50-50. But thank you for that. I
appreciate it.
>>
this is, though, the five-year total
because we have projects that will
come online that are not sgr that
will balance that out. So
if you look at just the '26 number,
I
think we're closer to the 50-50 number.
>>
we'll see
that here in
a little bit. Couple more slides. And
so
here's the sgr project categories. You
can
see that in
the plan. So $770
million total, our revenue vehicles,
our vehicles make up a significant
portion of that, and
you can see the other categories that
things are spread out throughout as
well. And we are excited to see the facilities
number has
been ticking up, getting
closer now to that $90 million
mark. So here's some of the main
-- sorry.
>> and as you know,
we did a facilities-wide assessment. We're
working on an emplementation plan,
so ultimately that number will be
--where we're going with that will
inform as we look
at '27 to '31.
>> all right. So here
are the top
10 projects that we have
in terms of overall plan amounts. So
they make up over
half of the plan at 55%. We've
talked about these, but
if there's any
questions, please feel free to
ask. Okay. And so just a
quick focus on 2026. We'll talk about this
a lot more in
detail here in the next presentation. But
here's the funding
sources for the 2026 plan
amount. Again, $331.7 million with
the grants
making up the bulk of that.
here's the project categories. Again, no
surprise the vehicles making
up the
largest portion of that. And then
the sgr focus as
it relates to 2026 is
just under $200 million. So to your
point, we'll get to the
percentage in just a second on the
next slide. Oh, sorry. I
guess we took
that out. But it's less than the 73
that we've
had in the past or we
just talked about. As far as next
steps go, turn
it back to
jared
for that.
>> yeah. Thanks, dan. Just
moving to adoption,
we have the approval
of the 2026 capital budget,
october 8th, local advisory consultation
on november 5th,
excuse me, and then,
of course, the board adoption on 12/3. Dan
alluded
to it earlier, there are a few, you
know,
tweaks and refinements, obviously
a couple things we'll check in to
from this meeting as well as
we move towards
the next steps plan. Any other questions
on the five-year
plan?
>> no. The one question
I have is we're looking potentially
to have a tentative
budget adoption in our first meeting
in october. Will we have
sort of a
draft of that tentative budget before submission,
I mean, to
look at, or are we subject to, you
know, the three days or whatever?
>>
I'm getting a resounding
yes from our chief financial officer in
the
back.
>> okay. Because
that would give me some comfort of
whether or
not personally I'd be ready to approve
a
tentative budget. Slides are great,
but, like --
>> of course. >> --
the details would be helpful, and
that would
be almost really too late to feel comfortable.
>> yeah. And
rather
than waiting on -- and I know nicole
went
over this during the budget work sessions on
the planning studies, but rather than
giving you another document, she's
on her
way, the budget discussion that vi
is about to kick off for
us, if you have any questions, she'll
be here
for that.
>> sure. Okay. >> I wanted to
just
compliment you on your --on
the full report that is in there. It
is really
good and really, really helpful.
>>
thank you.
>> so I just want to thank
you so much for
the work you did in getting all of
these projects aligned with the dollar
figures and everything else. It's
just excellent. So thanks.
>> thank
you for
saying that, trustee. I want to thank
dan because he put a lot of
time into the key that was attached
as
well there. So if there's any
questions about any of the codes,
he put a pretty
comprehensive key in there for you.
>>
yeah. Just
want to give a public shoutout to
mr. Hofer as
well. He put as lot of time
into this, weekends, nights, and I certainly
appreciate him being by my
side, so --
>> thank
you. And I'll pass your comments along
to those that helped
build that out
to you. So thank you.
>>
any other questions on this one? Okay. Thank
you. I think we're
going then
to
the tentative
operating and capital budget for '26.
>> so I'll just start
out by saying that the document is
in the system, it's ready. I
spoke to jan about it last night so
you guys can get it today.
>>
okay.
>> so here we go
again. Before I start this, I
want to say that
we
received from the government finance
officers association a letter
to commemorate the fact that
we have achieved another medallion for
last year's budget book. So I just
want to say thank you to the
budget team and to everyone who supported
and
had input
for last year's budget book.
>> congratulations. Nicely done. >>
if I could jump in for just one second. I'm
going
to try to steal as much thunder as
I can from vi right
now.
>> at least you're consistent, jay. >>
well, this meeting is
sort of to share the thunder. It's
everybody's thunder.
>> just
briefly, I
just want to --well, obviously thanks
in advance for the entire budget team
and the executive team of all the
work they've done since the budget
sessions to bring you the discussion
today on the proposed tentative budget. We
have
done a really good job. I
want use
scalpelling, I'll use refining --
actually, scalpelling is a body piercing term,
but we'll leave
it at that. But we've done a really nice job,
I think
you'll see when you look at both
the operating side and capital side,
we've really
a great job by dan, by jared,
the entire capital team
to refine that budget but maintain
our priorities, and as
well as making sure our system remains safe
and
in a state of good repair. So, you
know, we'll
be going through this today, but a
lot of what
we're going to talk about today has
rolled in
to all the feedback that we've got
during the budget work sessions and focused
on
how we can be
as responsible as we can with this budget
given the --
you know, the challenges and the constraints
that
we
see in the coming years ahead.
>>
okay. So just wanted
to give initially an overview, of
course reiterating how
we do our budget process here, starting
with
the development of the strategic initiatives
that align
with our strategic priorities and
plan. That is, of course, informed
by discussions with the board and with
the
executive team. We're going to go
through
that in a minute. Just a
streamline of our overall budget schedule, we've
--this is the second
year that we are doing this streamline
process where it allows purchasing
and talent acquisition to start sooner
in the year, so the sooner we get
through the tentative budget process,
the sooner
we can start working to prepare for
next
year. And then having
that capital budget improvements,
we started with the base budget. This year was
a
little choppy. It was the first time we came into
the budget season --into the budget
year without a carry forward from
the previous
year. As you can see throughout the year,
we've had to make some refinements. But
now going into the
budget season for 2026, we knew that going
in, that we're
not planning to have
a carry forward next year, whereas
last year the decision
was made later in the process. So
syncing up the capital
budget with the operating
budget schedules has really helped
as well.
>> sure. I'll take it from
here. As part of our
work on the budget, we're
creating a strategy document. This
is part of our one
page throughout the agency, but
the executive team has their one-pager,
all their targets and initiatives
are
tied to our strategic priorities
and success outcomes for our strategic plan. It's
an I-chart
on the screen in front of you, but I
guess you guys have
seen this document. But I'll just
take you through the targets. And
if you want to go through -- have
--I
have kim here to review any of the
initiatives
if you're so interested
in the particular
initiatives that we're doing. On the
quality-of-life side, we want to
continue to increase ridership. We've
set a
very conservative goal this year given
that our -- the refinement
of our service plan and just moving
at the forward right now to
2% next year. I think it's a very conservative goal
because
if you look at the success of ogx,
I
think we're going to see
a very good -- we'll see
really good ridership right away. We
want to
maintain access to all-day service. We've
achieved 54% in
2025. We're looking to maintain that. There's
nothing that
we're offering in terms of additional service
because
of
the xs actually within the defined service area
already or existing service to
raise that, but at the same time,
we want to maintain that
as a goal. And reduce our carbon footprint by
5%,
and there's a number of initiatives
around that. And
I think you've heard and will hear more
about the sustainability efforts and
the work that we're
doing in that area. For customer experience,
we're looking to
increase our net promoter square by
10%. This
has been a very simple question, would
you recommend the uta service
to family and friends? I will thank
our comps team to --
you know, for
all
their work around this, making -- making
our service --you
know, communicating our service
in a way that promotes positive feelings
about our service and, of
course, part of that is the service
itself. But some of it is actually communication
because
for those who ride our service, we
find that they're very supportive of us. For
those who may not ride our service,
we
want to reach out to them and show
them
the value of what we're doing. Perceived
safety which captures the customer
sentiment, how safe they feel while
waiting for a service
on stops and platforms, as well as riding
our vehicles. As
you know, we recently met with administrator
molinaro to talk about a lot of our
efforts around this. And
so we want to increase that safety
score by 5%. We
want to improve access to all-day
frequent service
by 1%. That may seem like a small amount,
but, actually,
when you think about that system wide, it's
actually
a nice increase, and that will be
very
much tied to the mpx service. And
finally,
increasing our customer informational
score by 2%. This
is a target that we had
in 2025. And this is just our customers' understanding
of what's happening in our system,
having good information
to access
our system and plan around our system,
and this --as well as part
of the cx work we're doing.
>> and
how
do you measure
that, I guess?
>> so that is part -- it's
--I don't
know if you have
that information.
>> yeah. >> okay,
great.
>> I didn't know if
it's through a
survey or --
>> yeah. >> self-assessment
or -- I think you got to push that
button once. As long as it's
green.
>> good morning, trustees and jay. Nicole, chief
planning
and engagement officer for the record. The
question
was how do you measure that customer information
score. So if you remember back, we
came to you all
on the cx plan, the customer
experience plan maybe a year
ago, and we
set some targets based on our abbg
and our goal customer surveys that go
out
yearly. And please don't ask
me what those letters stand for. Alisha
can. But what
we do is take those questions about
views, information, and
that's all rolled up to a focus area
which is ease of use. We take that
as
an aggregate and then each year say
how are we moving the needle
on that. So we have a
baseline from 2024. We'll evaluate
where we
are in 2025, and then our 2% increases for
2026.
>> so that comes out
of that survey. Is that something
prior to the plan that
you did a year ago? Do we
have any historical data?
>> yes. So
that's
what the 2024 was a situational assessment.
>>
okay.
>>
that's in the actual plan baseline. And
then
has a goal for the year for
2025, and we're in
the process of evaluating that with our
data
analysis team,
and then we will move to 2026, as
a goal, 2%,
as we get that information in the
spring of '26.
>> okay. Thank
you.
>>
thank you.
>> great. Thank
you, nicole. One organizational excellence, we
want to
continue to increase our organizational
improvement scores, improve our organizational
system maturity by 50%. So what does
that mean? That
means all of our organizational excellent systems,
so that's our
one pagers, our visual boards, our idea
boards,
our daily huddles, continue to move
that out into our system. They've
done
a fantastic job. All you have to do
is walk around here at
headquarters, and you see that. But
we want to continue to
move that out into the operating team.
>>
and
so is --I assume alisha's group or
somebody's tracking
who actually has those board?
>> yeah. They're
not only tracking
it, but they're directly supporting it.
>>
okay.
>> because we want those behavers
--
we want to be able to support those
behaviors and not just simply, you
know, the board lands, and, you
know, what do we do with this. And
they've done a really nice job
of that and bringing teams together so
they
understand how they're --you know,
how they engage
in these
kinds of working together. We have
a safety metric this year
as part of
organizational excellence to reduce osha reportables by
10%. Travis
king, our director of safety is coordinating
with our workers'
comp team and set that target for,
and
it'll be working, you know, with
the operating units to --on initiatives
to reduce
that number. And then we have an employee promoters
score,
so we
have an inside score on, you
know, people engaging their satisfaction
among the workplace, sand so we have
a number of initiatives around that
as
well.
>> I assume that comes
from the employee
survey?
>> that's correct, yeah. On
a community support side, we've already
had
great success and want to increase
to continue to increase
our public relations score by 8%. That's
a measure we have
seen significant move on and, you know,
that's
really a function of our campaign,
storytelling and the work
we're
doing through our social media platforms. And
as well as the
community bench park improvement and
our improvement of community
value, those are metrics that were captured
in 2024 as
part of our community satisfaction
survey. And so we want
to increase those scores. We're excited
to demonstrate that progress that
we made over the last two years,
and we do that survey again. So we're
hopefully that's actually
a conservative number, and we've
actually gone up
more than that. Economic return. Achieving our
annual budget,
and that may -- that may seem that straightforward,
but at the
same time, you know, vi and her
team have done
a really nice
job of compressing that --you know, that
number
one that's more realistic rather than
padded. I think I probably
used the word was similar to scalpelling. But
--so, you know, each
of our chiefs wanted to set that as
a target to demonstrate
the importance of budget management as
we go into next year. I don't know
if you want
to add anything on that or not.
>>
I want
to say when
I first got
here, we had
a very favorable budget, right ?fer year
prior
to my arrival, we were having favorability
of, you know, 20 plus
percent. And now we are under
10%. For the fact that we're even
-- you know,
this last month when you
see the new report, we're getting
close to vi anxiety levels. That's just
an inside joke in that
we are aligning our budget with our actual
needs
and the improvement there has been amazing.
>> and
finally,
we have set a target of improving
our perceived economic value by 3%. Again
this, is
part of the community satisfaction
survey. So we'll get that number. And
I
think the important point to make
on this because some of the
numbers we're going to see this year
as part of our targets,
but these are --some of them
are multi-year efforts. You know,
we're looking at survey numbers,
looking at long term trying to improve
them. So the initiatives around
those are focused not just simply
on one year movement but multi-year movement.
>> questions on that? >>
no. So
this is --
will these flow to the --our [ inaudible
] page? I
mean, is it something that the public
could
track us on, I guess?
>> yeah. No. >>
since this is an overall strategy?
>>
and avoid need alisha here
to talk a little bit about how we're messaging
that and, of course, but, you know,
not only do we
have the targets and
what we're doing on
the strategic webpage --or website
or a portion of our website,
but also the storytelling around
those successes.
>> yeah. No. The
combination of both.
>> but we have
--we have a -- we have a
dashboard on all this. And, in fact,
that's the dashboard that we
are reviewing when you guys walk
by our board at one time. So --
>>
okay.
>> I
did want to add something while we
were still on the previous
subject, mostly because I know you're going
to segueway in
a different area. So I represent
uta on the housing transit reinvestment zone
committee, and they met on money
with sandy city doing an application. And
as you know, those applications are
all
city
driven in partnership with uta,
wfrc and the development partner of whomever that
is. One of the
things that really came up that I
thought was a very interesting dynamic
is
I talked about the fact that we had
just
won an
award, and everybody was very appreciative. And
then seguewayed into the quality of
life which I equated to them as, you
know, part of that is this if I can
--you know, if I have frequency continuity,
right,
if I know that I can get on the system, and
there's this level of frequency that
adds so
much value, and it really delved into a
conversation that
then went to the economics which is where
is that
value add going to be? Because all
of those projects are
considered density projects with 50
units an acre or higher. In sandy's
case, it's 60 units per acre. And
I think that it
is really been acknowledged outside
of the agency how much
work goes into all of these components
that you have listed out here. And
so I
want to compliment you from that perspective
because
it is actually being recognized to a
certain
extent. There's a couple legislators
on that committee,
and they were very appreciative of understanding
that and getting that type of
feedback I think is really critical. So
that
is a tribute to everybody who has done
so much work. And I just wanted
to
share that out there.
>> thank you. >>
okay. So now
the development of
our annual service plan for 2026. For
2026, april change day, we will
be doing advance midvalley express
and the corresponding route changes
from
'27 to '26, so original plan
was for mvx
to be started in
'27. But due to our snap, crackle, capital
team, we got there early. And so now
we're going to implement a service
in '26. And
this has cost us, of course, to re-evaluate
some of the priorities in the upcoming five-year
service plan, but we'll
do that figuring out what's going
to happen next. But for '26, we have
mvx which is
an additional cost of $2.9 million.
>>
and
this has been discussed with you before,
as
well as the local advisory council.
>>
okay. [ laughter
]
>> that was some nice walkup music. >>
I
don't know if that's
the intro music for the five-year financial
forecast.
>> a little excitement. >>
I think that
was return of the mac,
if I'm not mistaken. Thank
you.
>> absolutely
was. So the five-year
financial forecast, again,
rolling the mvx into 2026, our
operating expenses are going to
be $487.5 million and capital expense $331.7. You
can
see those two numbers on rows d and
e. And then
we have our
debt service on row f of
$176.5 million. So this
is a total
of $995.8 million. So when we look
at our bottom line there at 2026,
we
see that our
ending balance
is still positive at $121 million. Head
noddings. Good. So this is our tentative
--
>> can
I just go back for a second? I'm sorry. I
just want to note when
we look ahead, you know, we want to
know what
the numbers are looking like, but
we've already made nice
steps. The ending balance in the original
documents that
you got, that
you had in 2030 was 366.8 million in
the red, so we are working
very hard to continue to roll this
in as we, again, look at
our revenue picture and look at ways
to, you
know, support us getting to a balanced
budget all the
way through the projection.
>>
absolutely. And you'll see as I continue
on that -- in a few slides just how much work
we've done
to bring down
the rate of
growth over time. So, again, our
sales tax revenue, I'll have brad speak
to that a bit
on what our plan
is right now. We are working with dr.
banister, of course.
>> just
with regard to our sales tax for
2026, we have been, as you know,
continuing to work with dr.
steve banister
of the university of utah, economics department. And
currently we
see --his current forecast is
that we see low growth
relative to our long-term growth rates. We
are actually working with him right
now taking
the latest information we've received through
half of the year,
and we'll be doing an
updated forecast of that coming up.
>>
I know we
were originally in a
sort of conservative position, at
least in
our forecast. Has that got more dismal
yet or you don't
know yet?
>> you know, it has,
and I think we've been fortunate that
the forecast is pretty
close to what we're actually seeing.
>>
okay.
>> you know,
we do see a
lot of economic uncertainty in the numbers. It's
interesting if you
dig down in the details how much
it appears that people have been doing
behavior
that's outside of the
normal range because of uncertainty.
>> yeah. Okay.
>> okay. So this highlights the operating budget. But
one of
the things I wanted to highlight on this
and jay alluded to is
the work that we've been doing to
bring down the expenses. And so if
you'll notice that bottom
line number that says that our
year-over-year change is
5%, last year's year-over-year change was
9.2%. So we are
working hard to make sure that we are
refining
our efforts, taking a strong look
at our budget to make sure
that what is in there are things that are
in line with what our strategic
initiatives
are and what our needs are.
so
just to, of course, call
out a couple of the
operating increases here, we'll
see that in
operations that increase is bus for
mvx, paratransit, a small increase
for
vanpool,
as well as light rail maintenance. And
this is
just a different view of the same
information, but you'll see
our parts are going down, mainly because
of making sure that
we are aligning with
our current inventory, and the
minor reductions in utility are just a
rebalancing of
the budget,
as well as our capitalized cost. And
everything
else is going up slightly, but,
again, an average of 5% increase
is
actually really good considering last year's
increase. And
this is just
a year-over-year change for our head
count. Of course operations as we prepare
to go in to mvx service. You asked
earlier when
we were doing the technical budget adjustment
about the positions that were built
into the '26,
so that is built into the
'26 budget for mvx service.
>> okay. >>
and
then there are minor
fte changes throughout the organization.
>> when
does that hiring
like of operators take place for
mvx service? I realize somebody else
might get the bid, but sort
of to backfill the operators that
take that route?
>> when does
the hiring of them --the
hiring is ongoing right now, but I'll
bring up --
>> I'm
just trying to get a sense of, like, when
do you have bodies --
and I realize you also have ski service.
>>
and
that's part of the equation.
>> right. >>
so I
got to think that that at some point
plays into
it a little bit.
>> yeah. So the hiring
has been
taking place. We've been ramping up
this year.
>> okay. >> so we're
actually in a position where we
are sustaining our operator staffing
numbers. We're in a
good position going into operating
mvx. On the
maintenance side, with the approval
of the
technical budget adjustment today,
we'll proceed to hire those maintainers
quickly.
>> okay. So
you already have then the operators
you need to add mvx?
>>
that is correct. We need to maintain
and grow just a tiny bit,
but we're
in a very good position.
>> okay. And
last year you used them
kind of --well, for the april
change day, those operators I
think helped you during ski season. Are
you anticipating
--you don't have quite the same numbers,
so
are you looking at more overtime?
>>
the service level with ski service
and the amount of operators it takes
is very comparable to the addition
of the service
in april of mvx, so it
allows us to transition comfortably.
>>
okay. That's
helpful to
understand. Thank you.
>> and that's
andres coleman,
chief operating officer for the record.
>>
thanks, vi.
>>
that's good clarification.
>> if I
could
--one more moment. I'm sorry, vi. We
don't have to go back to
the slide. But I think it's important
to note the work
on the operating budget is, you
know, changed or transferred a uta
fund balance from what
was a red number which minus
$4.2 million to now a positive
$8.5 million.
>> that's good. I missed
that. Thank you.
>> sure. >> thank
you, jay. Okay. So then we
wanted to just go over a few of the
changes that we've
put in since the
budget work sessions and just go through,
again, this fte changes were minimal. One
of the
things is you recently approved
transitioning a contractor to a full-time employee
from the procurement. This
is the capital of procurement work
that
we'd been doing over the last year,
and it's been going
so well that we recognize we
need to have this person on board, at
least one of the two contractors. And
so we are out recruiting for that. We
want
to fold that into the budget. We
have an
offset for a part-time to full-time
position within
community engagement, and then there's
equal
offset of that and customer service consolidation,
so that was
a net zero within the
planning department. And then we had
refinement of some head count within operations. This
is
not that we're
losing any operators or anything like that. It
was --
we're trying to align with how the
budget
office counts our ftes and how operations counts
their ftes. And so, again, it
was just a net reduction. And then
our insurance premium, you
heard a discussion earlier from brian
reeves, about changes in
our premiums, and we have
to add
in additional $420,000 to cover that.
you looked like
you were
headed to your button. Okay. Okay. So our
total
request, as you can see, with operating
capital
and our debt service along with our reserves
we have now hit
the billion dollar
mark for 2026. That changeover year over
year is $33 million,
and
it
is a net 3.4% change. So just to
walk you through where our major sources
continue to be,
we get over half of
our revenue from sales tax revenue through
the
state. We get additional
support for capital
sources, as well as our federal pm
--[ inaudible ] and then
we use our fund balance, 7%. So that
is a
continuation of the sourcing
plan for our budget uses. Majority
of our
use is actually neck and neck with
capital and operations. So they
build it, we
have to operate it. And
those two are again alignment. I see
that the cycle is that we have capital
build
it, we have operations run it, and
then it goes
back around to capital to maintain
it through
our sgr state of good repair
programs. So those two major parts. And
then, of course, debt service
is the next largest part of
our
uses, and then management and support.
>> I will
say, you know, as far as
tracking, I think when
we started back in
2018, debt service was more like 22%
or 23%. So
I realize the debt
service itself has probably not gone down
and our revenues gone
up, but as a percentage of revenue, it's
actually
encouraging to see it get down there
a little
bit a ways. So --
>> so percentages
are such
a funny little math
thing, right?
>> yeah. It's all relative,
right?
>>
10% of $10,
you know, but 10% of
$10 million, big difference. But,
yes, as
a whole, it is smaller as a whole
as it's a slice of the
pie. But a raw number.
>> getting
it
closer to where it's a little more
proportionate to
where it
should be. But
anyway.
>> it's all
celebration.
>> okay. And so these
are the 2026
budget initiatives that are included
in our budget. And it --
again, the fact that we have scaled
down what we need to
align with
what the strategy is, $1.1 million in initiatives, I was
gonna say
--I can't remember exactly what the initiative
number was last
year, but it
was far larger
than this, but, again, every department
has gone down, and a
lot of them are working with what
we
have. And this is
the result
of changes needed. I would say the
only focus here is that we are
getting two new roadway worker
protection specialists, and we are
getting a compliance manager,
all things that are in alignment
with
what our strategy is moving
forward. I hit the button there. Oh,
sorry. And so
this goes back to, again, full circle. At
the beginning of this process, we
meet and sit down with
the board and discuss
what key assumptions are going into the
budget as we move forward into setting
the strategy
and then setting budget target with executive
team,
we always start out here. What does
the
market look like, what, you know,
what we expect from sales
tax revenue, we get that
input from dr. Banister, we look at
our
fuel and see what the average
rates are, and we look at expense
growth in the market. Now, when we
first started out, everything
was kind of up
in the air about what might
come, right, what tariffs might
come, those implementations might
mean for uta. And so we feel like
we've taken a good stab at
aligning all of the
chaos that's going on in the market
and set good assumptions for our
budget growth.
>> just
because it's a pretty significant
part of our
probably fringe, I imagine it's in
your fringe number, and it's probably too
early because --
but with the pension fund, is there
--at what point
would we look at
how much we're putting into it versus
theacuaryial demand
and kind of still hitting
the marks? Obviously their original
--I think
it's 16% was needed to stabilize and
get it
there. So I'm not talking about shortchanging. I'm
just, like,
is there a point in time that we'd
relook at what those
numbers should actually be?
>> so
thank
you for bringing that up. Obviously
with
our pension committee, report earlier
today, we
are doing very well, and there
is room, and as we continue
to balance what happens as we move forward
through our five-year financial forecast
--
>> yeah. >> --that
will be
a consideration about reduction in that
area. There are multiple plates that we
are juggling here
to figure out what goes up,
what goes down. The pension is very
strong right now, and I,
you know, expect it to continue. But
using that
as a --one of the many
factors in
figuring out how we're going to have
-- continue to have a
balanced budget, right? So where that
point is, I get out my crystal
ball, but, yes, it is an option.
>>
and you'd want to be cautionary toward
--I don't mean
to --I just --at some point --and
to be
honest, you probably are getting a
good enough return there that the money
is probably just as well or better
off there right
now.
>> if I
may, there's a possible upside to
that
if the private equity performs like
we anticipate, you know, that
could give us a little bit more head room
needed there. But
I think your point, carlton, to --
or best advisory response, I think
as an agency, we have to look
at everything and just see what is
in the best
interest of this agency staying solid and solid,
and I think that's
wise. And I think pension is one area we
can
take a
really good look at. So --
>> sorry. Obviously
there's a discussion that could
still come about fare box increase. You're
not anticipating in this budget that
increase at
this point, is that true?
>> that would
be true.
>>
at least in your budget numbers.
>>
yeah.
>> definitely not
in the
budget we're submitting for discussion.
>>
okay. Obviously it
could change things. And it's been
--
>> yeah. >>
--more than a decade, right?
>>
oh, no, no, no.
>> 13 years. >> we've
been working on
this, and we're going to present. But
it
has its own process, and so we wouldn't
project into
this budget until
this process is complete.
>> gotcha. Okay. >>
so, again, multiple leisures, and
we can
look at all of them to see
what makes
the best choice,
best mix of options. And so
I'll let brian go back through some
of
this.
>> and we've already touched
on this
a number of times, but we've seen
that our
--you know, half of our revenue comes
from sales tax, and
what we've seen is we saw
the
big boom during the covid years of
stimulus money coming in in various
ways and how
that's wained over
the years. And our long-range trim,
we tended to assume around 5%, the green
line, and
we've been below that since,
you know, mid-2023. And so that's
something we're keeping really
close eye on. Is
there a paradigm change in our economic
situation, is growth slowing down? Right
now we're --I think
we've been conservative in terms of our
forecast but
reasonable. And as it is, we've been pretty darn
close. And so we're keeping a close
eye on this because, of course, it makes
a big difference in terms of how
we budget and how we plan on how much
money we say
we have available.
>> thank you, brad. So before
I turn this
over to dan to kind of enumerate some
of the things
we've changed in capital since
the budget work session, I just want
to just
put a bow on
that previous two-second
conversation is that the math problem
of revenue minus expenses, minus
debt service, that is a stagnant stable math
problem. But what we can do
within the different parts and different levers,
how we can
generate revenue, how we can cut expenses,
how we
can save on our debt
service, how we can reduce particular
projects
in capital, those are all things
that we can discuss to come
up with what makes the
math problem work, right? And so I
don't --I continually tell jay
this, I look
at this as an opportunity,
right? Whatever financial risk that
are embedded in
our format of how we do business here
at uta, these are all things that
are opportunities for us to face. So I
just wanted
to say that before
I moved on to
capital.
>> it's almost quotable, vi. We'll
just have
it on this side of our
office while --
to remind us.
>> thanks,
vi. We'll go through the 2026 tentative
capital budget. Kind
of the same format as what we went
through over
the five-year plan, and we'll proceed
accordingly. So these are project
adjustments. I
won't go through these all individually,
as we've
done a lot of them, just call out
some of the numbers on the right may seem
a little different as
the previous slide show was in the context
of the
full plan,
and these just represent
changes in 2026. So the list is shorter,
but you can kind
of --we already visit a lot of
them. If there's
any questions, please let us know.
>>
we'll
give you a few seconds on this slide,
because we're
not going
to climb through this all again.
>> out of curiosity,
where does the wheel
train machine originate from?
>> where
we
buy them?
>> where the tariff hit? >>
I believe
it's germany, but I'll follow up.
>>
okay.
>> I will
follow up
with
them on that.
>> just more curious.
here are
the project categories we've addressed
already.
>> that
represented a total reduction
of $13 million. So --thanks.
>> as
you can see the total budget
at the bottom
is that $331.7 million I alluded to. And,
again, our revenue vehicles is the
largest category
coming in at just
under $120 million. So here's some more
as it relates to
the project categories
and their respective funding sources. So,
again, the $331.7 million at the bottom, the
grant is the largest again I believe
--
I can't see them, but $110.7 million. Thank
you. And
then we have combined the state and
local partner here to show
that the uta funds and the lease funds are
shown together here, so
there's -- and then the bonds
are shown at the end.
>> irk I know
this, but rail system expansion, the
$31 million,
is that a udot thing?
>> so let me
pull
my list real quick. But part of
that
would include the s-line extension.
>> okay.
>> so the frontrunner 2x program is
in
there, the orange and red line
realignment project is in there, the
s-line extension is the largest
of that group for sure
at just over $31
million. And then the frontrunner
south extension from
the pro to payson study is also included
in that, and
then the last one
is the frontrunner point improvement.
>>
and I
imagine by system enhancement, is
that
5600 west mostly
or --
>> yes. Min valley has still a pretty big budget
in there next
year
as well, so --
>> okay. >> yeah. >>
and
I think --I'm sorry. He got the snickers
bar answered on the planning question. We
have nicole here if you have any further
questions on it.
>> I was
interested --
>> okay. >> --
to know sort of how those
-- had some local planning things,
and is that just
stuff when things come up that you
can respond
to it or --
>> specifically
on the $1.3, it's broken out in
several different departments I
have.
>> yeah. >> nicole burdo, chief
planning and engagement officer. So
if
you look at our capital, we have a
way finding
plan, and we're going to come back
to
you all
about how that's phased. But
that's about $600,000. Also we have
the
bus optimization which is now bus and
speed and
reliability which is 100k. We have
planning studies of 300. And as you
know, that's not significant enough
to do
one study. But what we use
that funding for for 2026 or what's
proposed is to
do our mapping and design requests
that we use that -- with gis, and
most of this
goes through our program management contract
of hntb. We also use
it for a
freeway study that we'll be
completing, micromobility accommodations infrastructure,
along with our park
and ride utilization, the study is
finished, but now we need to look
at
who's using it, what the tool looks
like and how many
people are there. This will help
in our development. And then an innovative
mobility solutions, we reduced everything out
of that that was grant dependent,
and so you'll
see our udot partnership
with tsp.
>> okay. Thank
you. That was helpful.
>> thanks. >>
before we move off this slide, I
also want to point out that as
you can see the grant total, that's
1/3 of our capital budget. And
it really is a timing issue. We've
seen --experienced
a timing issue over this last year,
so I just want to highlight
the fact that that continues to be
a bit out of our control sometimes. So
the ebb
and flow of
the grant revenue coming in is really, yes,
our grant office, our
grant department works very hard to process
whatever we will
need
to send, but we sometimes have issues
with the timing of receiving the
funds.
>> we want to take a moment
to thank fsh for responding to us.
>>
well, you
know, that award helps.
>> just wave
it
in front of them. Thanks.
>>
all right. So here's some
of the more major milestones. We'll
highlight a couple
of them. Obviously we talked about
mvx coming
online. Our s-line construction
will begin in earnest next
year. The amount og 10 admin building construction
will begin, and then the fare
system project is anticipated to be
completed next year,
as well
as the
new radio system installation continuing. So
here's the
state of good repair slide that I
thought was in
the previous presentation but is now
here. So you can
see
next year the
sgr number is 59%, non-sgr about 41%. And
then
highlighting the more major projects
under each of those, actually,
light rail has a large portion
of our sgr program there, and
then the two larger non-sgr
projects are the midvalley and s-line
extension. I'll turn
it over to vi.
>> okay. So
our next steps, we
are here today reviewing this tentative budget,
and
hopefully on october 8th when we return
to
the board meetings, you will consider adopting the
tentative budget. And then we'll go
to public hearings, and then we'll
go back to the
local advisory council and consult
on the
full package. And then december
3rd we'll discuss the final budget,
and december 17th, if
all
goes well, we will have adopted budget.
>> and
some interesting walkup music.
>>
there
you go. I don't know. I kind of liked
the
intro music to the five year. We will
make that part of the budget
discussion.
>> does anybody have any
final questions or questions about
the timeline? Okay. Thank you for
your efforts there. And we know a
lot
of work went into it. So thank
you. I just would
note that our next meeting will be
on
wednesday, october the 8th. With that,
I would entertain
a motion for
adjustment.
>> motion to adjourn. >>
second.
>> all
in favor say