Transit Finance Learning Exchange

Sharepoint website is available for members use TFLEx has created a new website in Sharepoint for its members. It is located at https://tflex.securespsites.com/ (Password required) At this time, we are not creating new accounts on the old site. If you are requesting a new account, visit New Account Registration (Sharepoint) to request an account on the new site.

Summary of TFLEx Fall Workshop
October 19-21, 2009
Orange County, California

The Fall 2009 TFLEx Workshop was held in Orange County, California, and was hosted by Bill Dineen and the OCTA. Our sincere thanks go out to Bill and his staff for the wonderful job they did in making this workshop a successful event. Attendance was down due to travel restrictions from many member agencies. To address this issue, three of the sessions were broadcast on the web, allowing members to view presentations and hear speakers. Our thanks go to Ray Garton for setting up the webcasting and making sure it worked well during the workshop. The successful experiment in webcasting will continue with future workshops. Thanks again to everyone at Orange County Transit.

The main topic of this workshop was The New Normal in transit finance. Bill Dineen welcomed participants and gave an overview of the workshop objectives. After his remarks, Bill turned the program over to Terry Cordell to provide the results of a survey he did prior to the workshop on current funding problems and service issues facing members. The survey results are attached. During the discussion, participants expanded on the issues they are currently facing and how they expect those issues to continue to affect their agencies moving forward.

Participants then gathered in smaller groups to come up with the three main issues they see continuing to affect their agencies moving forward; in other words, what their agencies were going to be dealing with as the new normal.

On Monday afternoon Irene DeMers led a discussion on the Significant Interest Group (SIG) calls done between workshops. Participation in the SIG calls has generally been good; but could always be better. Members agreed that two things could be different - 1) co-chairs should be rotated as needed and 2) an agenda team should be established to set topics for the calls and. Bill Dineen volunteered to be the new co-chair for the grants SIG. The calls will be webcast in the future, so participants can share presentations and other visual media.

Tuesday morning's session included two economists sharing their take on the new normal. Dr. Jerry Nickelsburg from UCLA discussed "Old Normals and New Normals" and concluded with the idea that the "new normal" may be the "old normal" with continued annual GDP growth in the 3.2% range. Dr. Christopher Thornberg, founding principal of Beacon Economics, gave a fast paced and fascinating presentation with his view being that the recovery will occur but will most like be slow. All members are encouraged to review Dr. Thornberg's presentation on the TFLEx web site, as it is full of great information on the national (and California) economy.

Tuesday afternoon's session concentrated on changes in the municipal bond markets. David Leininger, CFO at DART started things off with a discussion of his agency's recent bond sale. DART financed new capital construction by selling $1 billion in bonds, including $829 million in Build America Bonds.

Rodney Johnson, Deputy Treasurer of OCTA, gave a presentation on the bridge financing OCTA is using for the financing of the Highway 91 Express Lane placement, due to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008. The complicated transaction of the bridge financing has provided stability, and OCTA now has some breathing room to review options.

Jim Martling of Sperry Capital discussed his company's role in the OCTA Highway 91 Express Lane placement and how the markets have changed since the liquidity crunch. Nic Malas from Siebert, Brandford Shank & Co. echoed Jim's comments and added his own take on the issues.

The Spring 2010 Workshop will be held at the Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland Ohio in April 2010. The workshop will consist of sessions all day Monday and Tuesday until noon, with the business meeting to be held on Tuesday afternoon. Preliminary topics of the workshop will include the value of technology and the capital impact on operations, industrial relations and the role of unions, and societal changes that are leading to changes in transportation. More information will be forthcoming, including specific dates for the workshop.

The regular Business Meeting was chaired by Terry Matsumoto on Wednesday morning. Minutes of this meeting are attached as a separate document. All members are encouraged to attend the Business Meetings at the workshops.

All presentations from the Fall Workshop are available to members on the TFLEx Sharepoint website at http://tflex.securespsites.com.

TFLEx Accomplishments

Bi-Annual Workshops

TFLEx members meet twice annually to share best practices and "needs and leads," learn from industry experts and work together to develop and maintain the ongoing TFLEx Business Plan. These are facilitated workshops where all members are able to participate in roundtable discussions.

Training and Professional Development

TFLEx members identified a need to educate finance staff in the field of transit without extensive costs. Transit 101 was developed as a web-based instructional tool to bring information regarding the transit field to the desktops of staff members whether in finance or other departments. Modules deployed to date include Federal, State, and Local Funding; Procurement; Paratransit Operations: Fare Policy; and Regulatory Framework. Others are in development with a total of 26 planned.

Financial Operations Best Practices

Sharing management tools such as benchmarking, activity-based costing, process mapping, balanced scorecard, key performance indicators, and best practices has been an ongoing activity of members attending the bi-annual workshops. Transit systems taking the lead in these practices share their successes and "opportunities" with their fellow members.

Website Services

Membership in TFLEx provides access to entire TFLEx website. Here members share such information as:

• Posting of templates for finance policy and procedure manuals, RFPs, MOUs, etc.
• "Needs and leads" forum, members post questions that they are researching and request any available information from other members.
• Workshop agendas and presentations.
• Information directory of all TFLEx member contracts.
• Members have access to the complete website, while visitors may only view certain areas.

TFLEx Membership

TFLEx has a goal of 30-35 members. While membership is filling up fast, we still have room for additional members. Annual membership dues are determined by agency size

Membership includes attendance at the twice yearly workshops for a nominal fee. Click here for more information on how to join.