CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha Regional Transportation Authority is currently owed $800,000 from the federal government but can’t draw it down because of the ongoing government shutdown.
KRT Assistant General Manager Doug Hartley said fortunately the bus system has other funds to get by like a local levy.
“Right now it (shutdown) has not affected us and if gets resolved in the next week or so it shouldn’t really have any negative affects on us,” Hartley said. “But if it goes beyond two weeks then it could possibly cause some cash flow issues.”
KRT uses its local levy funds to pay its monthly operational costs but is reimbursed by the federal government on a quarterly basis. KRT has yet to receive federal reimbursement for July and August.
“We do have a letter of credit with a local bank in place that if we had to we could go to, it’s large enough to cover one month of expenditures,” he said. “But we don’t want to use that, we’ve never used it.”
Hartley said some smaller bus systems across the state may not have the flexibility in funding that KRT has. He said those rely on their federal funding from month to month.
“They need that money every month. We usually draw down once a quarter instead of monthly. That ability of having the local levy allows us that flexibility,” Hartley said.
The government shutdown has also cut down the lines of communication between KRT and federal agencies if there’s a question that needs to be answered.
KRT is the largest public transit system in the state carrying just less than 2.9 million passengers last year.