A consultant’s report that identifies serious shortcomings in the management of CATS and recommends replacing the public transit agency’s management team with outside experts is full of “errors, misrepresentations and omissions,” and is, essentially, “useless.”
So says the beleaguered management team in a written response to the report, which TMG Consulting delivered to the CATS board in January. Daily Report obtained a copy of the management response in a public records request. The response makes for interesting reading, not least because of its defensive, albeit curiously worded, language.
“Clearly, TMG are no Green Bay Packers but by all evidence provided CATS with a less than sandlot report,” the response says, apparently trying to suggest the TMG report is unprofessional and amateurish.
For example, the CATS response faults TMG for criticizing the system’s aging and unreliable fleet, “but does not indicate that new vehicles were ordered, which will decrease the percentage of defective vehicles.” The response also says TMG unfairly measured CATS’ performance against that of so-called peer transit systems that are actually much larger.
“One of the transit systems they use has almost 3 times the revenue service hours as CATS,” the response says. “TMG does not follow its own guidance when establishing … peer criteria.”
The response concludes: “In numerous scenarios and analysis, TMG violates its own criteria for analysis. Often it provided data that was inconsistent or made comparisons that were inappropriate and/not functional.”
The response also takes TMG to task for making comments to the media that it describes as “unprofessional, condescending and profoundly separate from what the scope of work was.”
“TMG media comments were negative characterizations of all CATS management and some individuals in particular,” reads the response.
CATS CEO Brian Marshall has particularly come under fire by critics. The CATS board voted Tuesday, by a narrow margin, to defer taking action on Marshall’s contract, which has been on a month-to-month basis since 2011. Board member Ryan Heck was among those who wanted to discuss the contract and whether to keep Marshall on contract any longer.
“Either you put your arms around your coach and say here’s our guy, or you cut him loose,” says Heck, who is a newcomer both to the CATS board and the Metro Council. “It’s time to get everything out there and move forward.”
Read the complete management response here.
Today’s poll question: Do you support retaining Brian Marshall as CEO of CATS, or do you want a private company to manage the bus system?
