Another METRO bait-and-switch?
KHOU-11'S MARK GREENBLATT reports that METRO, when faced with declining sales tax estimates that might have jeopardized its application for federal funding to build more glorified streetcars down busy streets, simply provided the feds with older, less accurate but rosier, sales tax projections. The economist who generates those statistics tells Greenblatt METRO should have used the more accurate numbers:
“The feds ought've been given the updated numbers,” said University of Houston economist Dr. Barton Smith, who has been predicting sales tax revenue numbers for Metro for about 15 years.
Smith says his 2008 pre-crash report that Metro used in its application for federal grant money does not come close to representing the financial reality on the ground in Houston today.
[snip]
For instance, for 2010 alone he predicts a $95 million drop in sales tax revenue from the forecast Metro passed on to the federal government.
[snip]
In fact, for the next 15 years combined, Smith downgraded his tax revenue projection by $2.4 billion, but KHOU discovered Metro never shared that information with the federal government.
That, we presume, is just another example of the rogue transit organization being run "in a completely transparent manner."
BLOGVERSATION: Harris County Almanac, Houston Strategies, Perry vs World.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/16/10 07:35 AM | Print |
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