The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority’s (RIPTA) Melrose Street offices in Providence. The agency is proposing 23 new hires next year despite a looming $31.5 million budget shortfall. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) wants to add 23 new positions at the start of the next fiscal year — even as the agency faces a $31.5 million revenue shortfall.
RIPTA’s board of directors on Thursday voted 7-0 to approve the agency’s $159.2 million spending request for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2025.
The proposed budget is subject to changes by Gov. Dan McKee, who will unveil his own version of a statewide spending plan in January, which will then be reshaped by the Rhode Island General Assembly before a final budget is approved by June 30.
The $143.7 million allocation for RIPTA in the current state budget which ends June 30 is $15.5 million, or 10.8%, less than the bus agency is requesting in its new budget.
RIPTA’s spending proposal calls for seven new customer service agents at Kennedy Plaza and the Pawtucket-Central Falls Transit Center, along with 10 new utility workers to maintain the agency’s roughly 300 sheltered bus stops.
CEO Christopher Durand told the board that the agency restructured its budget to allocate funds more effectively and focus on rider needs.
“And we did it while reducing the deficit a little next year,” he said.
RIPTA initially projected a budget shortfall of $32.6 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2025, which shrunk to $18 million thanks to a share of the state’s remaining federal pandemic aid, which will no longer be available to repurpose after this year.
The planned hires drew praise from transit advocates.
“This is the most rationally organized budget I’ve seen from RIPTA,” Randall Rose, a member of the Kennedy Plaza Resilience Coalition and RI Transit Riders, told the board.
But Rose still questioned how RIPTA will manage to plug its latest gap.
“There’s not a lot of detail in the budget,” he told Rhode Island Current.
The agency’s draft fiscal 2026 plan projects $127.7 million in revenue, nearly $100 million of which comes from state and federal funding. Passenger fares would bring in another $11.3 million, based on the existing $2 charge.
Raising fares is not on the table, Durand told the board.
Meanwhile, the state is also staring down its own projected deficit of $330 million for fiscal year 2026.
So where else can RIPTA find funds?
Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti, who also chairs RIPTA’s board, suggested courting more companies to advertise on buses and sheltered stops.
Durand said a lot of bus stops are in too poor condition for ads — something he said the agency plans to address after staff complete their survey of all 3,600 stops across Rhode Island.
RIPTA is also working with businesses to pay employees’ bus rides to boost ridership.
Board members Marcy Reyes and Vincent Masino were absent from the meeting.
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