February 15, 2012
Agency Prepared for Service Change on Monday
After more than a year of planning,
the 2012 service change is finally upon
us. New service begins Feb. 20, with
major changes to local routes, reduced
service on commuter routes and several
route eliminations.
Community Transit staff have been
out at park & rides and senior centers
and onboard buses for the past month,
talking to passengers about the
changes. At recent events, almost all
riders we talked to said they were aware
of the coming changes.
Staff also will be at major facilities
Feb. 20-21, to help passengers adjust to
the changes.
Starting Monday, bus service will be
cut by 80,000 service hours, the same
amount as in June 2010, but a higher
percentage of our agency’s service this
year. With these cuts, we will have
reduced service by 37 percent
compared to May 2010.
In addition, the agency will lay off an
additional 103 employees, bringing to
total 206 employee layoffs – 29 percent
of our workforce – since 2010.
While downtown Seattle service will
see reduced trips, the local bus
network in Snohomish County will
Karen Gerrodette (left) and Debbie Anderson were on hand for an outreach event.
More than 4,700 people have been contacted as a result of the outreach efforts.
have more changes. There will be fewer
trips serving outlying areas, during
middays and evenings, and on Saturdays. Also, bus service will end between 10 and 11 p.m., about two hours
earlier than it does now. Those changes
reflect a desire to focus service hours
where and when customers use the bus.
This also will impact the hours DART
Continued on Page 4
Pay Stubs Provide More Detail About PTO
Calendar
Feb. 20 – First Day of
Service Change
Feb. 20 – Presidents Day,
Administrative Offices
Closed
March 1 – Board of
Directors Meeting, 3 p.m.,
Board Room
Community Transit has adjusted pay
stubs to provide more information for
employees. When staff receives their
paycheck, or pay notification if they have
direct deposit, the form will show each
employee’s individual paid time off (PTO)
cap and how much PTO the employee
accrues each week. The information will
appear just below where the PTO account
balance is located.
This change is being made to allow
employees to better manage their PTO
account balance, particularly those who
are near the maximum. Non-represented
employees are allowed to accrue 1.5 times
their annual PTO.
The information listed on the check
stub is the cap that was in effect on the
pay period end date. PTO is earned on the
Sunday of each week, so if you haven’t
used any PTO during the pay period and
Continued on Page 4
Regional Partners Speak Out Against Funding Cuts
House bill would
eliminate some federal
funds for transit
Leaders of six Puget Sound region
transit agencies, including Community
Transit, spoke out this week against a
U.S. House bill that would eliminate
the Mass Transit Account portion of
federal highway funds, instead putting
the transit money into a general fund
account. The bill automatically reduces
the size of the transit funds and lumps
it in with other ―alternative
transportation‖ modes. Such a move
would mean the funding would not be
guaranteed to transit, as it has been for
the past 30 years.
―We have been pushing our state
and federal leaders for increased
funding to preserve and restore service,‖ said Community Transit’s Todd
Morrow. ―H.R. 7 goes in the opposite
direction, reducing transit funding and,
very importantly, putting the only federal money we could rely upon in
jeopardy.‖ Morrow is the agency’s chief
of strategic communications and leads
our federal lobbying effort.
Community Transit received about
$10 million, or about 9 percent of its
operating budget in 2011, from the
Chief of Strategic Communications Todd Morrow represented Community Transit
at an event where local transit leaders spoke out against a U.S. House bill that
would move federal transit funds from a dedicated account to a general fund.
federal Mass Transit Account. Nearly
half of that helps support operations. If
that funding were to go away, or even
be made uncertain, our agency would
need to fill that hole with local sales tax
revenue, which could mean more
service cuts, possibly as much as 9
percent of the service left after Feb. 20.
On that date, the latest service cuts
due to economic shortfalls will be
implemented. All together, Community
Transit will be operating 37 percent less
bus service than it did two years ago.
Further cuts in federal funding, as
proposed under H.R. 7, could add
more cuts to service and jobs.
H.R. 7 passed out of the U.S. House
Ways and Means Committee last week
and is still under consideration by the
full House.
Marine Elected to Chair Agency Board
About
communitytimes
Mukilteo Mayor Joe
Marine was elected as the
new chair of the Community Transit Board of Directors at the board’s
February meeting.
Marine, the former
vice chair, replaces outgoing board chair Dave
Gossett from the Snoho- Joe Marine
mish County Council.
At the same meeting, Mill Creek
Mayor Mike Todd was elected vice
chair. He previously had served as
board secretary. Marysville Mayor Jon
communitytimes is produced every
two weeks by the Public Affairs
Department to inform and entertain
Community Transit staff. Printed
editions are being produced in black
and white as a cost containment
measure.
Do you have an interesting story
idea? You can submit story ideas by
calling Tom Pearce at ext. 2381 or
send an email to
[email protected].
February 15, 2012
Mike Todd
Jon Nehring
Nehring was chosen as the board’s
secretary.
Community Transit Board officers
are elected each year at the February
meeting.
Editor: Tom Pearce
Page 2
IT Has A Variety of Equipment Staff Can Check Out
Information Technology
has a wide array of
equipment available for
employees to check out for
work use only. Staff can
check out:
Laptop computers
Portable projectors
Portable screen
Memory card readers
Digital cameras
Video camera
USB hard drives and
floppy drives
Wireless broadband
cards, which allow
Internet connectivity
wherever cell phone
service is available
In addition, our agency
also has a teleconference
service (for conference calls)
that is available. This was
used several times during the
January snows for meetings
to coordinate service and
communications. The conference call feature costs 3
cents per minute per partici-
pant. It is funded by IT. For
more information, contact
the Help Desk at ext. 6100.
IT also is evaluating a tool
that would allow web
conferencing, which would
provide voice, video and
presentation abilities. More
information about this service will be available in the
near future.
Having these tools at the
agency’s disposal provides
many benefits, said Ann
Martin, manager of
Technology Support
Services.
―With this equipment, we
can achieve cost savings for
the agency, we can better
utilize the equipment, and it
improves IT’s ability to
support and maintain it,‖ she
said.
For more information
about checking out
equipment or setting up a
conference call, you can
contact the Help Desk at
ext. 6100.
Big Climb Team
Prepares to Tackle
Columbia Tower
Money raised will fight
leukemia, lymphoma
Community Transit’s Big Climb
team is taking steps to raise money for
the Big Climb, benefiting the Leukemia
& Lymphoma Society. The Big Climb
is a fundraising climb up Seattle’s
Columbia Tower—69 floors, 788 vertical feet, 1,311 steps. The climb takes
place March 25.
Community Transit’s team is going
to raffle off several prizes, including a
refurbished girls Stingray bike from the
1970s, quilts and a hand-painted
garbage can featuring Oscar the
Grouch from Sesame Street. The
money raised in the raffle will be
donated on behalf of Community
Transit’s team members: Chris Beck,
Sara Burnett, Sylvia Chaney, Keith
Larson, Pepper Roberts, Tim Schnee,
Dan Spargur, Sarah and Theresa
Teschlog, and Jeff Welk. Raffle tickets
currently are available from Keith,
Chris and Theresa.
This is the 26th annual Big Climb
event in Seattle. Registration is closed,
February 15, 2012
A bike, quilts, a custom-painted garbage can and a game are among the items
being raffled off to benefit the agency’s Big Climb team.
with all 6,000 entry spaces taken. The
event has two parts – a timed climb for
racers and an untimed climb. The
racers and climbers will use separate
stairwells, but each event will end on
the 73rd floor of the Columbia Tower.
Page 3
A Helping Hand
Signature Policy
Gets Revision
Kathleen Custer and Randy Franklin were among the officers from ATU Local
1576 on hand Wednesday to distribute food and gift card donations from Local
587 to help ATU members who are being laid off at the end of the week due to
the service change that takes effect Feb. 20. Thank you!
SERVICE CHANGE
Continued from Page 1
paratransit service operates. Nine bus
routes are being eliminated and two
new routes are being created.
With this change, we will focus our
service hours on major corridors and
PAY STUBS
Continued from Page 1
you haven’t reached your
cap, an employee’s PTO
balance will increase by
twice the weekly accrual rate.
Employees represented
by the ATU will begin to
have a PTO cap starting
Wednesday, Oct. 31. Those
employees also will be able
to accrue up to 1.5 times
February 15, 2012
peak hour travel. Recent surveys show
that 75 percent of Community Transit
customers ride the bus on six major
corridors (including I-5 to Seattle) and
70 percent ride during the peak
morning and evening commute hours.
Details of the service change,
including how each route is being
their annual PTO.
Any employee who
reaches his or her cap will
not accrue any more PTO
until they use some of what
they have in their account.
Any ATU-represented
employees who currently
have more than 1.5 times
their annual accrual many
want to consider making
plans to use it between now
and Oct. 31.
Community Transit has revised its
policy regarding signature authorities
and the authority of employees to
make purchases or enter into contracts
on behalf of the agency.
The revised policy, POL-FN-3000,
updates the existing policy by
providing an increase in the
purchasing limit to $3,000. The old
limit was $2,000.
The policy took effect Jan. 9. It
applies to any employee who has been
delegated authority to make certain
financial, contractual or regulatory
transactions on the agency’s behalf.
The policy is available at
I:\Policy\Approved\Central_Policy_
Manual_Vol_1\Finance
3000\POL_FN_3000 Signature Authorities\POL_FN_3000 Delegating
Purchase and Other Authorities.docx.
Questions regarding this policy
should be directed to Cherrill Mears
or Emmett Heath in the
Administration Department.
impacted, are available at
www.communitytransit.org.
February 20 is Presidents Day, but
there will be no holiday schedule, just
the new schedule of reduced service.
We are doing this to help reduce confusion among riders who will already be
scrambling to get their trip correct.
New information is included below the box on check stubs.
Employees with questions
about PTO should contact
Payroll: Cindy Stover at ext.
7118, Ren Mendoza at ext.
2320 or Lori Fox at ext.
7175.
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