The impact of sharply rising diesel fuel costs today prompted the Metropolitan King County Council to unanimously call for a performance audit of King County Metro Transit to identify more efficient business processes and ensure the best allocation of resources in order to maintain levels of service.

"When budgets are tight, that's the time to be doing more audits, not less," said Council member Bob Ferguson, who commutes by Metro Transit and sponsored the audit legislation.

"Skyrocketing fuel costs may soon lead the county executive to propose a fuel surcharge or fare increase for Metro Transit," said Council member Larry Phillips. "Before we entertain such action, we need to assure bus riders that we are identifying every cost-savings and efficiency in the transit system."

The recent spike in fuel costs is hitting Metro Transit especially hard, with the agency expecting a shortfall in its fuel budget of more than $30 million over this year and next. An aide to the county executive has told the Council to expect a proposal for bridging the budget gap to come in the next few weeks.

The Council designated $300,000 from Metro's operating budget, to pay for a performance audit that will be used to in the 2010-2011 biennial budget. The sum represents three one hundredths of 1 percent of Metro's biennial operating budget of $1.1 billion.

The audit will be conducted by the King County Auditor and focus on areas that are most likely to yield savings if performance or efficiency can be improved. Any savings identified would be directed towards offsetting higher fuel costs or providing additional service.

Metro Transit is the county's largest budget in terms of both appropriation and employees. The Council approved a total 2008-2009 biennial operating and capital budget for Metro of more than $1.7 billion. With the recent voter approval of the Transit Now measure, the County no longer has new resources available for adding additional bus service, so that funding for any new service will need to be identified through more efficient agency performance.

King County Metro Transit is one of the largest public transportation agencies in the nation and last year provided more than 100 million rides. Metro Transit also operates many of the Sound Transit Express Buses, the South Lake Union Streetcar, and will operate Link Light Rail beginning in 2009.