leaders are preparing to cut jobs, a step toward addressing a projected $250 million per year shortfall and balancing RTD’s record-high $1.5 billion budget.
The cuts are aimed at saving $10.7 million from the annual $431 million RTD spends on its 3,169 employees, according to emailed responses from RTD spokeswoman Marta Sipeki.
RTD chief executive and general manager Debra Johnson sent employees a memo Feb. 3 announcing the cuts as part of a strategic “realignment,” warning of “difficult decisions” in the coming months due to “an unprecedented economic situation.” Johnson noted “no federal funds are available” to help deal with the agency’s deficit.
“While the $10.7 million savings from the operations realignment is significant, it represents only a portion of the overall cost-saving measures needed,” an RTD statement said.
RTD officials plan to reduce vacant positions, eliminate contract work, and shrink or eliminate jobs in multiple departments. About half of the estimated annual savings will come from eliminating vacant management positions, including deputy assistant chief operations officer, general superintendent, assistant general superintendent, and other supervisory and business support positions, according to the statement.
The job cuts coincide with efforts by RTD’s 15 elected directors to find new sources of revenue, run bus and train service more efficiently, and cut other expenses. The directors in December approved the $1.5 billion budget but face a shortfall because of higher-than-anticipated maintenance and repair costs and insufficient sales tax revenues, which fund 70% of RTD’s spending.
RTD hasn’t given union leaders who represent the agency’s 1,169 bus and train operators information about who will be targeted, said Lance Longenbohn, president of .
For years, ATU officials have been warning RTD directors about “management bloat,” and $10.7 miliion in savings “obviously isn’t going to solve the budget problem,” Longenbohn said.
“RTD got themselves into this mess. They have added assistant managers in every division. They’ve added lead supervisors on top of supervisors — layers of management. It was, perhaps, a well-intentioned effort to try to be more interactive with employees. But we warned them,” he said.
RTD Director Chris Nicholson said administrative job cuts cannot alleviate the agency’s deeper financial troubles. “The voters gave us enough money to build a transit system and run a transit system, but not to maintain it in the longterm,” Nicholson said. “We need a long-term solution that either pays for billions of dollars in upcoming maintenance or makes billions of dollars in cuts over the next decade. No amount of cutting bloat fixes that problem.”
