THE SPYGLASS: Transportation authority looks like it's doing well

Prices are skyrocketing, and more people are being laid off by the day. Times are tough all over.

Or are they?

The Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority is doing pretty well.

The agency's 1 percent sales tax, approved by voters in 2004, raised $301,725 more in January and February than in the same span a year ago.

El Paso County's sales tax revenues also were up - by 2 percent, or $247,768.

In that time, Colorado Springs' tax collections dropped. City finance manager Vicki Phillips blamed the dip on "leakage" to the county - stores moving outside the city.

The RTA's increase is good news for commuters and transit riders in Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Green Mountain Falls and the county, RTA's member agencies.

More good news: A measure kicked in Jan. 1 that halved fees the RTA pays the state to collect the tax.

The bill, proposed by Rep. Larry Liston, afforded the state's four RTAs the use of the same formula used by the Denver Rural Transportation District.

The change saves the RTA $260,000 a year. That money, plus the extra tax money received in January and February, will more than cover RTA's $511,500 in administrative costs.

That sum, which includes $254,000 for 2.5 employees at the Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments, equals less than 1 percent of RTA's $72 million budget.

Officials vowed to keep those costs low, and they have, said Rick Sonnenburg, RTA's program and contracts manager who's worked for public agencies for 30-plus years.

Colorado Springs Vice Mayor Larry Small agrees, saying it's good to have someone looking over your shoulder.

Sonnenburg reviews invoices to make sure they're right, and guess what, sometimes they're not.

He's caught duplicate invoicing "numerous times," and account codes charging expenses to the wrong project. That's not to say the city and county are trying to pull a fast one. They're glad errors are identified, he said.

Sonnenburg also visits projects, not to inspect but to "confirm that projects are complete as they are reported to be completed."

Again, guess what? Sometimes they're not.

"I found that curb, gutter, sidewalk and some paving occasionally is reported by the county or city as finished when it isn't," he said.

Sonnenburg said RTA projects are moving along.

"The four member governments are getting lots of asphalt work done, curb, gutter, sidewalk," he said. "Pedestrian ramps are going down by the hundreds."

So far, the tax has raised $223.9 million, and $168 million has been spent. The rest is for projects being designed.

Read all about it in the RTA's annual report, due out in Sunday's Gazette.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazette.com