Struggling with a budget hole of $43 million that it will have to fill in the course of 2022, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) launched a “cry from the heart” on Friday morning. She warns that she will not be able to make additional cuts and calls for new sources of revenue.
Before the Finance Commission, the STM argued that it had made significant cuts in recent years. The pandemic led to a major reduction in ridership starting in March 2020 and the situation gradually improved during 2021. The 5th wave of COVID-19 and the return of confinement, however, slowed this progression and the STM is beginning to the year 2022 in a very precarious financial situation.
Last December, the STM tabled a budget with a shortfall of $43 million that will have to be made up in 2022, but it will need new sources of revenue to achieve this.
The STM intends to maintain the reduction in bus and metro services at 2021 levels in order to seek savings of $25 million. It also intends to adopt various measures such as the hiring freeze to generate further savings. It also postponed the start of maintenance work on the Azur metro cars for a year, which does not present any safety issues, but could increase the number of service stoppages, warned the director general of the STM, Luc Tremblay. This measure should enable it to save $12 million.
Before the Finance Committee, Luc Tremblay, pointed out the governance of transport in the metropolitan region since the creation of the Regional Metropolitan Transport Agency (ARTM) in 2017.
“Since the arrival of the ARTM in 2017, the STM has only had one source of revenue, which is the ARTM’s contribution. […] The ARTM makes its projections and decides unilaterally on the amount it will grant to the STM and the STM must combine the ARTM’s decision with what is paid to it,” explained Luc Tremblay. “The STM is still the tenth largest company in Quebec and we don’t manage the revenues. Expenses are hardly managed anymore. We do not manage our debt and we do not manage our surpluses. This governance is very, very cumbersome and it is becoming extremely difficult to be able to play the role that is expected of the STM in a context like that. »
The STM may have limited its service delivery to generate savings, but the ARTM has already advised it that it would reduce its contribution to the Société de transport by $18 million in order to absorb its own deficit. The director of the STM protests against this measure which increases the shortfall of the STM from 25 to 43 million dollars.
However, the STM does not want the ARTM to be abolished. “We all wanted within the Metropolitan Community this mode of governance which allows for better planning”, indicated the Chairman of the STM Board of Directors, Éric Alan Caldwell. “There have been good moves by the ARTM, such as the tariff overhaul and the Strategic Development Plan, but it is clear that with a new institution that is five years old, comes an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of that model. »