The proposed regional transit plan and tax underestimates the cost to taxpayers by $300 million and fails to deliver services worth the price, two of the region's top elected officials said today.

The funding and service equity objections to the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan master plan by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel delayed a scheduled vote today by the RTA board that is needed before the tax can be put on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The RTA board earlier in the afternoon announced in a short statement it would wait at least a week to vote on approving the November ballot language and campaign plans for a $2.9 billion regional mass transit tax in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties.

With state and federal matching funds, the measure is predicted by the RTA to generate $4.6 billion over 20 years to pay for build bus rapid transit (BRT) lines on the Woodward, Michigan and Gratiot avenue corridors (and on Washtenaw Avenue between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti), create the long-discussed commuter rail service between Detroit and Ann Arbor, and cover their annual operating costs.

It also would eventually cover Detroit's M-1 Rail streetcar line.

A joint statement issued just late Thursday afternoon by Patterson and Hackel lay out a litany of questions and objections to the RTA master plan.

Specifically, they want to know what residents of their counties will get for the tax dollars they pay.

"I cannot in good conscience support the current plan which spends over $1.3 billion of Oakland County taxpayers' dollars over 20 years but only gives our businesses, workforce, and residents a fraction of that back in transit services," Patterson said in the statement.

Also included in the joint statement was a July 5 memo from Oakland County's two RTA board members, Chuck Moss and Timothy Soave, which says that taxpayers in the four counties will end up paying $3.2 billion over 20 years rather than the $2.9 billion estimated by the RTA.

Their primary concern laid out in the memo, which is to RTA CEO Michael Ford, is how the master plan will affect services and funding for the current bus systems, especially SMART.

"Unfortunately, in our opinion, the plan fails to sufficiently acknowledge and provide for the differing missions of the city and suburban systems," they wrote.

"The draft plan says that one of its goals is to insure that DDOT and SMART continue operating their existing services, yet the plan fails to demonstrate with specificity just how the financial resources to do so will be guaranteed to each agency to allow that goal to be achieved.

"Oakland will not support any plan that injures its primary transit provider, SMART, to the detriment of our taxpayers and riders."

The plan's call for the RTA to eventually take over the $140 million streetcar line being built on Detroit's Woodward Avenue is a "non-starter" according to the Patterson-Hackel statement.

"The plan needs to explain the funding role of the RTA, the (Ann Arbor bus system), the City of Detroit and Wayne County as it relates to M-1, a system that will operate only in Wayne County. Similarly, the plan needs to explain the funding role of the RTA in regard to the proposed Detroit-Ann Arbor rail line, a service that will not touch Oakland or Macomb County," the memo said.

An RTA spokeswoman said Thursday evening that the board would work on the issues raised by Patterson and Hackel.

"We fully expect that if we spend the next week working together reasonably and in good faith, that these technical issues can be addressed in a smart and fair manner," it said via email. "The board is planning to hold a special meeting next week (prior to the deadline for the submission of ballot language) to take action on the plan."

Patterson and Hackel said in their statement they remain committed to the concept of a regional transit plan. But any such plan has to satisfy their concerns.

"The current RTA plan falls short of achieving our county's expectations for transit," Hackel wrote. "It is difficult for us to support a more than $4 billion commitment over the next two decades which could negatively impact our county's long-standing commitment to transit especially the SMART system."

The statement outlined three broad questions:

What will Oakland and Macomb County taxpayers receive under the plan in exchange for their investment?

When will the benefits be received?

How will the RTA guarantee the delivery of those services?

A specific concern in the Patterson-Hackel memo stems from a caveat within 2012 state law that created the RTA.

Specifically, Oakland and Macomb want an explanation from the RTA on how it will comply with the law's "85 percent rule" they say "requires that no less than 85 percent of the taxes collected from a county will be spent on transit in that county."

Here are the other concerns, presented verbatim from the memo:

Provide equitable grant coordination measures for the service providers and RTA.

Address the annual formula allocations between the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT), the Detroit People Mover, Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART), the RTA as an operating agency, and the Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority, especially for services that cross metropolitan borders.

Establish a binding mechanism to guarantee that the benefits promised to each jurisdiction will be delivered, a mechanism that cannot be overturned by a simple majority vote of the RTA Board.

Describe how the RTA will deal with reductions in general fund subsidies or failed millage renewals. In other words, SMART, Macomb and Oakland counties cannot be left holding the bag if there is a decline in other revenue sources.

Demonstrate how the plan will avoid negative impact on SMART, its funding, and operation. SMART is the only truly regional bus system, because of the co-mingling of funds. "We will not accept any plan that damages the ability of SMART to perform its existing service levels or prejudices its ability to secure operating and capital resources necessary to execute its mission," the memo said.

In addition, there must be a clear return on investment shown for the current opt-out and other millage excluded areas and a rationale must be provided for the 20-year diversion of RTA millage proceeds and the dollars they leverage out of Oakland County.

The RTA has conducted a series of public opinion-gathering and comment meetings since the May 31 plan unveiling with the intent of collating that input into a final plan that the board would vote upon today.

The Nov. 8 ballot issue as first introduced would ask voters in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties to OK a 1.2-mill property tax increase to fund the RTA's master plan of bus rapid transit and commuter rail. The RTA has said the tax would cost the owner of an average home in the region $95 annually in additional taxes — a figure that would be higher or lower depending on the home's taxable value.

If voters approve the transit tax, all property owners in the four counties would pay it — there would be no opt-out provision, unlike the suburban bus tax. The RTA millage would be atop the other transit taxes already in place in the Ann Arbor area and Detroit suburbs.

Under a BRT system, buses operate much like a rail line, with specialized train-like wheeled vehicles with dedicated lanes, priority traffic signaling and higher speeds.

The RTA tax would be the local money required to access matching federal funding to build and operate bus rapid transit and train systems. The RTA would have to apply for such funding from the federal government, and the process is vigorously competitive and often lengthy.

Total cost of the RTA's master plan, with federal and state funding the authority plans to eventually seek, is estimated at $4.6 billion through 2036.

The millage also is expected to fund new traditional Detroit Department of Transportation and SMART bus service, a universal fare card for the region, and an express service across the region from the airport. The tax also could pay for other transit infrastructure capital costs.

The RTA was created in 2012, after 40 years of failed attempts to do so, with the intent of creating a regional transportation plan and network for the metro area. It responsible for coordinating mass transit operations and funding across the four counties, including cooperation among established transit agencies such as the DDOT and SMART bus systems.