Back in 2016, Parking and Transportation Services wrote a Word on the Street blog post that provided insight into the department's financial situation. This included details on where its funding comes from and how it is spent.
We thought now would be a great time to see what has changed in the six years that have passed, and what remains the same.
Self-Sustaining Operation
Parking and Transportation is a self-sustaining entity. That was the case in 2016, and it still is.
As an auxiliary service, we receive no funding from the state or the university. No student tuition is provided to the department. Our operations, programs and services are funded solely through the revenue we generate from permit sales, visitor/event parking and enforcement.
Parking permit prices for students, faculty and staff are set at a level that allows the department to cover its expenses. A lot of work and numbers crunching are done behind the scenes to ensure we set prices at the lowest level possible.
We are currently in Fiscal Year 22, which runs through August. Our projected revenue for the fiscal year is approximately $23.063 millon. This is where that funding is coming from:
Permit Sales: 73.2% (down from 76% in 2016)
Permit Sales (Students): 55.5%
Permit Sales (Faculty/Staff): 17.7%
Visitor/Event Parking: 20.8% (Up from 17% in 2016)
Enforcement: 5.3% (Down from 7% in 2016)
Our expenses for the fiscal year is projected to be approximately $21.161 million. This is how it is being used:
Garage Financing: 59.2% (Up from 54% in 2016)
Maintenance and Operations: 33.2% (down from 37% in 2016)
There are some changes in our expenses that have taken place since 2016 that are worth noting, much of which can be directly or indirectly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of these shifts involves shuttle expenses. Currently, shuttles account for 7.6% of our spending. Back in 2016, it was 17%. This change in shuttle spending is the result of the pandemic. As you well remember, the pandemic forced the University to go virtual for an entire year. With no in-person classes and most staff working from home, revenue from parking permits plummeted.
As a result of this lost revenue, Parking and Transportation had to make some very difficult decisions regarding its finances. One way to cut spending was to decrease shuttle service. Most of this was through the elimination of the shuttles buses that continually took students, faculty and staff fro the Remote Campus lots to the main campus and back. We no longer have the Remote Campus permits, so the shuttles to UH Technology Bridge have been reduced to one shuttle van.
Another unfortunate result of the pandemic was having to reduce job positions, which is why salary and wages went from 12% of our expenses in 2016 to the current 5.6%. The parking team is much smaller than it previously had been -- and is roughly only a third of the size it was in 2016.
