MSU Parking and Transit feeling the fiscal effects of COVID-19

Jeremiah Dumas, Director of Mississippi State University Parking and Transit Services gave the annual report for the SMART Grant Application to the Starkville Board of Aldermen on Tuesday night.

As part of MSU Parking and Transit’s annual funding, they come to the Aldermen each year with a required public hearing where they present the previous year and the details of their funding.

“Needless to say, this past year has been an interesting year. Our funding details have stayed the same over our several years of service,” said Dumas during his presentation on Tuesday night. “We are a 5311 Rural Mass Transit Program; these funds are administered by the Federal Transit Authority through the Mississippi Department of Transportation. These funds cover 80 percent of our administrative and capital costs, and 50 percent of our operational costs.”

In terms of ridership, MSU Parking and Transit finished the last fiscal year down 42 percent in their fixed routes and down 32 percent in paratransit.

Despite the down percentages, there were still some accomplishments to look back on.

“It wasn’t all bad for us. Every year, we look at how we can maximize efficiency and maximize ridership on all of our routes. When March hit, we had to really look at how do we change that model of maximizing riders, looking at safety, and how do we continue to operate in the central service as deemed by the federal government,” said Dumas. “So, we did reduce capacity on all of our buses by cutting it in half and marking off every other seat. We purchased the best PPE we could, we gave it to every driver, and we actually had enough to where we could distribute some to riders when we could. We had implemented mask mandates on all of our buses, and still do have those mandates. We’ve also implemented a daily frequent electrostatic bus cleaning program, so we’ll stop buses on their routes and clean them a couple of times a day with electrostatic disinfectant machines. But most importantly, we were able to continue to supply the essential services that we are asked to provide to our community.”

For the 2021 fiscal year, MSU Parking and Transit has a proposed budget in the amount of $4,780,943 with roughly half of that in proposed local cost share, $1,821,391 of that coming from MSU.

“We do have some various contracts and advertising that help offset some of that local cost share, and then the $50,000 that [the City of Starkville] provides annually is a part of that cost share mix as well,” Dumas said.

After Dumas’ presentation, Mayor Lynn Spruill said the MSU Parking and Transit’s SMART program is extraordinarily beneficial to the community and that it’s a good economic development tool.

Other items on Tuesday night’s agenda included the first public hearing to amend the City of Starkville Code of Ordinances to allow for brew pub exceptions to food sale requirements and to define brew pubs, and consideration of a request for a landscape waiver from buffer location and tree type requirement for a townhome development on Lynn Lane.

The Starkville Board of Aldermen will meet again at City Hall on February 5 at 5:30 p.m.