CLEMSON — Clemson City Council on Monday night approved the city’s annual CAT operating contract with Clemson University, in which the university will pay a total matching contribution of $1,351,251 for transit service in FY 2009-10.

But City Administrator Rick Cotton cautioned that CAT must draw at least $220,000 from its cash reserves to balance its budget.

“We’re looking at a potential loss of $426,000 next year and, while $200,000 will be made up within the next 60 days because CAT has not received its full allocation, you’re still looking at a budget that will lose $200,000 even if you collect it,” Cotton said. “This budget is not sustainable long term. There will have to be some ‘give’ next year.

“You could burn that much cash for the next two years and then it stops; the money’s gone. Therefore, this issue needs to be addressed within the next eight months.”

Last year, prior to passage of the current Clemson-CU CAT budget agreement, Clemson University announced it would cut $500,000 in funding that resulted in 11,000 hours of transit service. But university officials also introduced the TIGER (Total Integrated Green Service) Route to provide a more efficient route designed to provide improved access for university students on campus while losing only a small percentage of riders. In the process, three existing routes — Maverick, Bridge and Lightsey — were eliminated as officials said they had become cost prohibitive.

The amount paid by Clemson University in FY 2008-09 was around $1.16 million, with the city’s portion of $1,050,000 derived through state and federal funds and a $160,000 lease purchase for buses. However, the university has increased its contribution slightly to $1,351,251 to reflect minor changes in the agreement (including additional services requested that include on-campus routes and additional hours on existing routes).

CAT’s approved operating budget for the new fiscal year budget that began July 1 is $3.14 million — including contributions from participating municipalities (Central, Pendleton, Anderson and Seneca) where CAT service is provided.

Cotton said that while the agreement with Clemson University calls for the city to maintain a CAT enterprise fund account as part of its operating budget — with a minimum fund balance of 5 percent of the previous year’s operating revenue that is paid from Clemson University — last year’s allocation cut by the university, reduced contributions from South Carolina Mass Transit, rising fuel costs and “zero” buses under warranty have made that virtually an impossibility.

“You can’t put 5 percent away if you’re spending the previous year’s balance,” he said. “The maintenance budget has doubled over the last five years, due, at least in part, to the increase in fuel costs.”

Last year, Cotton said that while the university has been subsidizing CAT — not only with the $1.1 million accrued from the transit fee, but through parking fees — they have since been directed to allot parking fee revenues toward parking maintenance and construction of a parking deck.

While several routes were eliminated as a result of the funding cut, it was the implementation of the TIGER Route — which requires eight-minute waits between buses — that has raised the ire of students and City Council members.

“Students are not happy about what is going on now,” Abernathy said.

Council member J.C. Cook said the wait time issue must first be addressed before any other parking-related issues.

“If we can’t alleviate the problem, parking isn’t the answer,” Cook said. “I don’t want to see us put in a big parking deck and not be able to move people where they need to go.”

But George Smith, associate vice-president for Student Affairs, said transit service is “a part of what we evaluate in the overall parking process.”

“Right now, there’s nothing we can do as far as CAT because there are no buses to add,” Smith said. “All buses in the current fleet are being used, so we would have to buy more buses to make it work and shorten the wait process.”

Cotton said he doesn’t expect the situation to improve any time soon.

“There is no immediate relief on the horizon,” he said. “You’re going to hear some of the same complaints this year that you heard last year.”

Smith said cuts in state funding, including nearly $45 million to the university during the past budget year, caused university officials to feel the timing was inappropriate to seek an increase in the student transit fee. The $66 annual fee, used by the university for CAT service, has remained unchanged since its implementation in 2004-05.

“The idea, when we instituted the transit fee, was to support parking, and parking still supports transit by $300,000 to $400,000 per year,” Smith said.

Smith said one possible idea to address the parking problem in the long term is to purchase 60-foot buses to replace the 35-foot buses. But Smith added he is positive that something will be done to address the parking issues on campus.

“We agree on what needs to be done and the outcome,” he said. “We’ve just got to determine the process.”