For more than a decade, the Missouri Department of Transportation had been in arrears on it payments to Amtrak for operating Missouri River Runner service between St. Louis and Kansas City.
By 2020, Missouri’s debt to Amtrak had reached $6.5 million.
Now that debt has been wiped out courtesy of federal COVID-19 relief funding that Amtrak used to “pay off” the debt, the News-Tribune of Jefferson City, Missouri, reported this week.
But funding of the service remains a challenge for MoDOT and it appears that double daily service on the route will no longer be a year-around fixture for at least the short term.
The case of Missouri River Runner funding is a cautionary tale of what could happen in other states if Amtrak and those states move ahead on creating new corridor service routes as envisioned in the Amtrak Connects US plan released last year.
Missouri fell behind on paying Amtrak in 2010 because the state legislature would habitually fail to appropriate enough money to pay for the service.
MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna told the News-Tribune that his agency would request funding each session but it wasn’t appropriated.
“What would happen is on July first each year, we’d get the core appropriation and that core appropriation started paying the overdue bill more than the advancement of the service for the following year,” McKenna said. “And it got to the point where that grew almost as much as the cost of the service itself and that was, obviously, a problem.”
McKenna said the cost of providing Amtrak service would increase annually due to rising costs of labor and fuel, but legislators didn’t want to increase funding for Amtrak.
Until the COVID-19 pandemic intensified in March 2020, Amtrak operated double daily service with trains leaving St. Louis and Kansas City in the morning and afternoon.
That fell to a single roundtrip during the depths of the pandemic before service reverted to double daily in July 2021.
However, the Kansas City afternoon and St. Louis morning departures were suspended in early January because the state doesn’t have enough money set aside for Amtrak to pay for that level of service through the end of the fiscal 2022 budget year. MoDOT is seeking $10.8 million in state funding for Amtrak for fiscal year 2023.
That would enable MoDOT to pay for one roundtrip for half of the fiscal year and two roundtrips for the other half.
McKenna said it was likely that two roundtrips would operate between July and December.
The cost of operating two roundtrips all year would be an estimated $13.2 million, he said.
Having a split year operating pattern comes with risks. McKenna said Amtrak might turn down reinstating a second pair of trains when Missouri wants them, saying it lacks the crews to staff the service.
In the meantime, Missouri lawmakers approved budget bill language prohibiting MoDOT from paying operations debt to Amtrak with general revenue appropriations.
McKenna said MoDOT then began comparing the billed operating costs to ridership revenue and general revenue appropriations to determine how much service it could afford without going into debt to Amtrak again.
That was what led to the suspension of one Missouri River Runner roundtrip on Jan. 3.
MoDOT favors double daily service. McKenna said the agency understands the positive economic impact that has.
Discussions are underway with legislative committees regarding appropriations for Amtrak service for the next fiscal year.
McKenna said the Amtrak funding seems to be a high priority for some lawmakers, particularly those whose districts are on the train’s route. But Amtrak funding is nowhere on the radar of other legislators.
The News-Tribune story can be read at https://www.newstribune.com/news/2022/jan/18/amtrak-forgives-millions-in-state-debt/
The car is the Hollywood Beach, which was built in 1956. The trips being offered will feature guides from the Midwest Rail Rangers group.
The action by the Missouri House of Representatives’ Budget Committee approved $9.85 million to support one daily roundtrip. Two daily roundtrips would cost at least $12.65 million.
Amtrak in the Heartland 