A costly depot closing?

Nassau County would have to repay roughly $1 million to both state and national transportation agencies if Nassau Inter-County Express proceeds with its plan to close the Rockville Centre bus depot, but county officials said there could be a way to keep the facility open.

According to former Federal Transit Administration employee Larry Penner, Nassau County would have to repay both the New York State Department of Transportation and the FTA if it moves ahead with plans to close the depot.

Penner, who worked for the FTA for 31 years, said that the then Bee Line Bus Garage was renovated around 1988, at a cost of $10 million. Of that, $8 million was provided by the FTA’s predecessor, the U.S. Department of Transportation Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and $2 million in local matching funds was split by the state and county.

“Should NICE bus attempt to close this depot in April 2017, Nassau County will be on the hook with both the FTA and NYSDOT,” Penner said in a letter to the Herald. “This shut down could result in the FTA requesting reimbursement by Nassau County based upon straight line depreciation for the remaining value of this investment, which was never achieved.”

All capital improvements have a useful life requirement. The Rockville Centre depot’s life expectancy was roughly 36 years.

An unidentified FTA agent said in a statement that the agency had received no official notice from either Nassau County or NICE about the status of the depot. “The Federal Transit Administration has not been officially notified by Nassau County and the Nassau Inter-County Express of a final decision to move the bus operation from its current location at the Rockville Centre Bus Depot,” the statement read. “Upon official notification, the FTA will work with Nassau County and the New York State Department of Transportation to identify the value of any federally funded assets and make a decision regarding the amount of any possible reimbursement.”

County Comptroller George Maragos confirmed Penner’s assessment on Dec. 30 and said that the depot, on Banks Avenue, could remain open if sales tax revenues remain ahead of budget projections and state representatives come up with additional money from Albany. Maragos said that sales tax revenues were up about 3.4 percent, compared with the 1.7 percent that was budgeted.

“Every percent is about $12 million,” he explained. “So, if we’re looking at maybe 2 percent higher sales tax revenues, that will give us about $20 million more, so [the county executive and the Legislature] may decide to increase the funding, rather than reduce it by the approximate $6 million that they took away in the budget. They may decide to restore it. So that is good news, actually.

“That would be our recommendation,” he added.

Maragos said that getting additional funds from the state “has happened in the past.” Asked about the possibility that that might happen again to save the depot, he paused for several seconds before answering, “Reasonable.”

The fate of the depot, he said, could be decided by the second week of January.

NICE spokesman Andy Kraus said that “no official announcement has been made about closing the Rockville Centre depot,” but that it was an option that could save the county $1.5 million in operating costs. He added that NICE has had no contact with Maragos about the closing.

Kraus said that NICE would propose its 2017 budget in February, and that it has not yet decided whether to close the depot. He noted that this year’s county budget is $6.8 million less than 2016.

“Saving the facility is less important to NICE than saving the service for its customers,” he added.

But garage manager Michael Bivona said on Monday that closing the depot was a “definite thing.” He planned to have an “operation change” meeting with TransDev, NICE’s management company, on Wednesday, after the Herald went to press.

There are roughly 400 employees at the Rockville Centre depot, including mechanics, maintenance and utility workers, drivers and engineers. NICE’s plan was to combine those workers with the ones at its Garden City facility.

But Rockville Centre garage employees said they believed the space in Garden City was too small to fit all of its employees and service vehicles, which would likely lead to layoffs.

“I sent four workers and a manager over there,” Bivona said of a recent transfer. “The rest of the people are going in April. I have a 50-50 chance of having a job in April.”

Bivona, who said in December that NICE had announced the closing without warning, dismissed Maragos’s claims of possibly saving the building. “They would have to come up with $7 million to save the depot,” he said of the county, which owns the building. “and they don’t have it.”

The news comes weeks after Nassau County’s financial control board accepted the county’s second try at a balanced budget, after legislators approved a $130 hike in the tax map verification fee. In the revised budget, however, NICE will still see $3.8 million in cuts.

In early December, NICE proposed canceling nine bus routes, but the plan was rejected after the Nassau County Bus Transit committee split its vote during a meeting on Dec. 8. NICE had hoped to close a $12 million budget gap by eliminating bus routes that were deemed to have low ridership, including shuttles in Rockville Centre, Freeport and Wantagh, as well as the Elmont Flexi.

But at that meeting, the transit committee only considered January reductions affecting nine routes. In a presentation by NICE CEO Michael Setzer to the board, however, Setzer presented a scenario for additional service cuts that would take place in April: If additional operating funds are not available, seven other bus lines would be in jeopardy, while 11 others would have adjusted schedules.

Setzer cited rising operating expenses and declining revenues as the reason for the budget shortfall.