Idaho's Unclaimed Transit Money

DRIGGS — A Wyoming commissioner told Teton County, Idaho, and Teton County, Wyoming, commissioners on July 23 that federal rural-transit dollars are lapsing back to Washington for want of an Idaho local match. Another Teton County, Wyoming, commissioner proposed a regional transit board to capture them.

At the two counties' joint workshop in Driggs, the commissioners voted only to adopt the agenda and to adjourn. Nothing about transit was decided.

Teton County, Wyoming, Commissioner Wes Gardner said he had been involved with START, the Jackson-based transit agency, for almost 10 years. Federal Section 5311 rural-transit funds flow through the Idaho Transportation Department, he said, and START has "continually over-applied" for them. That leaves a pool on the current two-year cycle that the Idaho side is not positioned to match.

He put it at "about $1 million or there's about $600,000 available over the next 2 years," stating both figures in the same breath, and said the unclaimed share "aren't going to be used. They're just going to go back to the federal government." None of Gardner's figures could be verified against ITD or START records.

By his account, federal dollars already cover 50% of START's operating revenue and 80% of its capital, with the local match "all shouldered by Teton County and the town of Jackson." An Idaho contribution, he argued, would draw down federal money close to dollar for dollar: "you bring $600,000 to the table, you get $600,000 more," using START as the administrative agency. He called the ask modest, "not millions" but "tens of thousands," and "a piece of pie that's getting uneaten."

He also cautioned that regional transit works only if "everybody's bringing something to the table," and said START is "maxed out," with what he described as a "$1.5 million funding deficit for START this year that we're managing." That figure is unverified as well.

Teton County, Wyoming, Commissioner Luther Propst picked up a bus-service idea his board's chair, Mark Newcomb, had raised earlier, then questioned START's governance for a two-state system. START serves two states, three counties and about half a dozen municipalities, Propst said, yet "is governed by a board that's appointed by just 2 of those governing bodies, and it's operated by a separate municipality that's only 2.85 square miles."

He proposed a regional transportation advisory board "just to start," which could mature into a "regional transit authority where it becomes actually governing." The first step, an advisory board, "doesn't have any legal authority" and "doesn't require Congress," Propst said; the second would revisit the counties' existing over-the-hill bus agreement toward "a federally acknowledged regional transit agency."

Driggs City Administrator Doug Self countered that the city already provides land, capital facilities, local match funding and restroom maintenance for the START commuter park-and-rides and the Grand Targhee shuttle, "local funding going into the system that maybe you don't see in your accounting in Teton County, Wyoming." If Idaho puts in more cash, he said, "we should look at the total equation."

A facilitator read the room's silence as support "for a transit advisory board akin to how well the fire services are working." Propst, stepping through the joint-powers process, said, "somebody in this room knows more than I do... That's a given, right? Everybody's nodding for the first time today."

The board was one of several ways to pay that the commissioners weighed over the day, alongside a third penny on the resort district's tax, a toll on Ski Hill Road and a transit fund open to private donors. The advisory board would also take on a Teton Pass safety mission.

What to watch: A facilitator suggested putting a timeframe of "within the month" on next steps so the group would not lose momentum. The open question is whether the Idaho side brings a local match before the current two-year 5311 cycle closes, and whether the $600,000 to $1 million Gardner described holds up against ITD and START's own records.

Sources

Teton County public meeting portal (eScribe)