Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) officials told the County Committee on Finance that they are continuing to work with vendor Transdev on performance and that staff provided the committee with route-level cost estimates for restoring proposed service reductions.

Steve Fuentes, president and CEO of MCTS, said the Transdev contract set a productivity target of 1.7 passengers per revenue hour; Transdev has been averaging "more than 1.3 passengers per revenue hour," he said. Fuentes said the operator's productivity has "made a slight uptick" but remains below the contractual target and that some invoices and performance issues are still being discussed by the county's lawyers.

MCTS staff provided the committee with a systemwide estimate of $5.5 million to restore all proposed route eliminations. Director of Service Development Ochoa explained the difference between the "minimum cost to restore" and the "conservative cost to restore," saying the conservative estimate includes a buffer for interactive effects across routes (for example, reduced fare revenue that can result when connected services are removed) and other operational unknowns.

As an example, the transcript cites a single-route restoration estimate: for one route listed at the top of the spreadsheet (identified in discussion as "11" during the hearing), the minimum cost to restore was $315,000 while the conservative cost was $420,000. Staff told supervisors that the conservative figure is intended to avoid creating a deficit if restored service generates lower-than-expected fare revenue or other system impacts.

Fuentes also provided context on service levels, saying MCTS has been providing approximately "1,300,000 hours of bus service" annually since 2012. Committee members asked staff to append route‑level Excel spreadsheets to the public record and requested contact information to coordinate if supervisors want to pursue partial restorations of specific routes.

No committee vote or formal action on restoring routes was recorded in the hearing transcript; the hearing served to provide supervisors with the operational and financial data to inform potential budget decisions.