More on a bad deal for taxpayers, but a bargain at their expense for one big corporation.

I posted recently on addled messaging about the Generac bus from a weekly report of Whitewater’s city manager dated 5.11.12. Last Friday, 5.18.12, there was another announcement about the bus. That new announcement is really an admission of how expensive the bus is, but it seems neither the announcement’s author nor the webmaster who republished it understands as much. (For my earlier post, see, Old Whitewater’s Addled Message. For other posts about the bus, see A Generac bus by any other name, and A Local Flavor of Crony Capitalism.)

First that announcement, then an assessment of what it really says about the Generac bus, and what that really says about Whitewater’s political messaging.

The 5.18 Bus Ridership Announcement.

From the 5.18.12 weekly report of Whitewater’s city manager, one read this about bus ridership —

Whitewater Innovation Express Releases First Two Week Ridership Totals

Janesville Transit reports that a total of 173 passenger trips were made during the first two weeks of the operation of the Whitewater Innovation Express commuter bus service from Janesville through Milton to the Whitewater Business and University Technology Parks as well as the UW-Whitewater campus.

Of the total trips, 143 or almost 83% were taken by Generac Power Systems employees.

Generac supplies over 80% of the riders, but pays only 20% of the costs of the bus.

The total cost to run the bus until the end of the year is $128,310. The actual public cost to support Generac is $68,005 in state and federal money, and $15,000 in local public funding from the City of Whitewater and UW-Whitewater — a total of $83,005.

Despite these taxpayer subsidies, bus riders still pay a fee to ride, for each trip.

Generac — a business capitalized at over one-billion dollars – picks up only about 20% of the total cost, or about $26,058.

Most of the passengers are from one big business, but most of the funds come from local, state, and federal taxpayers.

Huge Costs per Passenger.

Consider even a back-of-the-envelope calculation. From the start of Generac’s bus service in late April until the end of the year, there will be thirty-five weeks. That’s about $3,600 per week to run the bus.

If there have been 173 passenger trips over two weeks, then each passenger trip cost over $41.

Forty-one dollars.

Of the list of possible uses of this much money per person, few people outside of Generac’s executives would rank Generac highly.

If Generac’s employee ridership were to double, it would still cost over twenty dollars – the cost of which is borne mostly by taxpayers – to shuttle Generac’s passenger-employees back to their homes in Milton, Janesville, etc.

Less Costly to Drive.

A single driver, traveling twenty miles, would incur costs of about eleven-dollars per trip ($0.55/mile in costs), but would save the bus fare – a fare that’s $4.00 per trip to Janesville.

If that driver shared her car trip with two other people, the cost per person would be under $4, as against each $4 in bus fare per trip.

Society is heavily subsidizing Generac’s employees. If there is to be spending, it could go for a hundred greater needs than this.

The Generac bus will need to have about ten times as many riders merely to approach the lower costs of a simple carpooling arrangement.

Unfair at any Fare.

Profits-flush Generac benefits disproportionately from this program: over 80% of riders are employees, but only 20% of contributions come from Generac’s hundreds of millions in annual revenue.

If this program cost only $100 instead of $128,310, Generac would still be getting too much and paying too little.

Bottom-Shelf Messaging.

I’d suppose that the idea of 173 passenger trips is meant to impress, but that’s only true until one looks at the costs incurred to get those passenger trips.

There’s the messaging problem: anyone thinking this a positive announcement is assuming that readers won’t understand what the costs are, or won’t be able to calculate them — even under a back-of-envelope calculation.

Worse – one would be ignoring that these are funds to benefit a single corporation that’s one of the haves taken from the pockets of ordinary people.

Whitewater is filled with thousands of really sharp people who can see this is a bad deal for everyone but Generac.

Even when one republishes the city manager’s announcement approvingly in a bright red font, it’s still the republication of a mediocre message, about a bad policy.

The Local Political Problem.

One cannot and should not stop someone from approvingly (and reflexively) republishing officials’ weak justifications, but one can reduce the number of weak justifications.

The messaging problem is that too many ill-considered explanations and announcements see the light of day. There’s no one who acts an internal check against flimsiness. Believing that something must make sense simply because it’s from an official source only compounds this problem. (In fact, believing as much is a problem all its own.)

There are two simple ways to fix this: (1) find city officials who can present a solid case, with a focused, compelling message, or (2) assign an editor from within city government to review the statements of officials for reasonableness, political impact, etc., and thus avoid continued mistakes.

The first is unquestionably the better approach, on principle and for policy. Even the second, though, would be better than what we have now.