Utah Tranportation Authority is a thorn in the side of Utah elected officials. They’ve been studying the issue, and trying to craft a solutions to remove the obstacles they see in the agency.
For those of you in Texas, think of an agency that is a mix of 2017 TABC, 2013 HHSC and 2011 TXDOT when it lost a billion dollars.
3 solutions from Utah’s elected officials to reign in a rogue agency:
- Follow Maryland. Create a Transportation Secretary who oversees all transit, rail, ports and transportation, thereby requiring the agency to report to the State Secretary of Transportation.
- Independent Agency with no control over finance or big projects. Leave the indepdent agency in place but move all finance decisions to the legislature. All agency assets get moved into a state umbrella account that the agency cannot access.
- Split the agency. Let the agency have its indpendent control over transportation outside of all major metro areas. The metro areas transportation issues are handled by the legislature/Governor.
Salt Lake Tribune | Task force considers closer state control of scandal-tainted UTA