SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Office of the Legislative Auditor General conducted a performance audit of the Utah Transit Authority and the Ogden-Hinckley Airport and presented those reports to the legislative audit sub-committee on Wednesday.
"They’ve made some improvements, but they have an opportunity going forward to be one of the best in transit in the United States, and we’ve found we believe ways to help them meet that goal,” said Jesse Martinson, the manager of audit staff.
Auditors reported that UTA has mostly implemented the recommendations made in a 2014 audit. They also recently changed their governance structure to improve efficiency, among other suggestions. UTA said they agree with the recommendations and are working on them.
"I think planning and how we work with local communities and how we can help them have better transit plans within their community, how we interface with them, and then looking long term — how do we meet the growing needs of the state of Utah?” said UTA Board of Trustees Chairman Carlton Christensen.
Some other recommendations include making public transit faster by giving traffic signal priorities, dedicated lanes, bus stop optimization and reducing on-boarding delays. All of this is in hopes of increasing ridership, and a big part of that is prioritizing the frequency of routes.
"That’s important because it reduces wait times for transit and appointments,” said a member of the audit team during the presentation to legislators. “Makes connections easier, creating a network, provides a backstop for reliability issues, and there's no need to check your schedule — you just show up and go."
Senate President Stuart Adams also highlighted the importance of expanding FrontRunner services — especially looking ahead to population growth in the Wasatch Front and possibly hosting the Olympics in 2034.
"I guarantee you will have astronomical ridership if you can have an express train go from Provo to Ogden at 150 miles per hour — and you can be in Salt Lake in 10 or 15 min,” Adams said.
While UTA's recommendations focused on improving organizational structures and increasing performance and frequencies of routes, the Ogden Airport’s audit highlighted the losses Ogden taxpayers have been covering and issues with hangar management.
"Regarding the financial situation of the airport, we found that since 2006, the airport reported an operating loss every single year. That ranged from a couple hundred thousand dollars to over a million dollars,” said lead auditor Andrew Poulter.
"Like the report said, if we put in measurable benchmarks, that we have clear strategies on how to get there, then I think that the plan that we have with those tweaks and with measurable objectives over time are going to help us get there, to make sure that we are accountable to the taxpayers, and that property taxes aren’t subsidizing operations at the airport,” said Ogden City Mayor Ben Nadolski.
The report also found that the airport has not yet been able to maximize the $10 million funding from the state in 2020, and has not created the 3,000+ jobs it set out to at the time.
Another concern: About half the hangars have no building code or inspection on record. Multiple hangars have no functioning aircraft and some don’t have aircraft information available. But the city is putting in the work to turn the airport around.
"Getting back to stakeholder engagement and communication — I think that’s going to have the biggest impact; that’s what’s had the biggest impact already,” Nadolski said.
