The Utah Transit Authority runs not only on diesel, compressed natural gas and electricity for its buses and trains. It also buys a lot of food to fuel its bosses and employees.
It spent at least $456,905 last year — just under a half-million dollars — for catered meals and snacks from ice cream to pizza at such things as board meetings, manager huddles, holiday parties, meetings with outside partners and regulators, and a variety of other gatherings.
That averages to $175 for each of its 2,600 employees. The food bill amounted to 0.11% of the agency’s $403 million operations budget.