PROVIDENCE — Among the various groups of advocates and interest groups that crowded around inside and outside the Statehouse on Tuesday afternoon, a large contingent included supporters making a last-ditch effort to fund the state’s public transit system.

In the coming fiscal year, the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority faces a $32.6 million deficit that the agency has said would lead to the loss of a third of its workforce and deep service cuts.

As the 2025 legislative session nears its end, the General Assembly has yet to act on any of the bills that would partially or fully close RIPTA’s budget gap.

“We need to make a move on this,” said Sen. Meghan Kallman, D-Pawtucket, who is sponsoring several of the bills in the Save RIPTA package.

With the Trump administration pushing cuts on federal funding sources for states, Kallman said Rhode Island needed to strengthen its own support for its programs.

“We’re optimistic we’re going to get money,” said Walter Melillo, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 618. “But is it going to be enough?”

Melillo, who represents RIPTA’s drivers, brings groups of the operators and union members to the Statehouse almost weekly to talk to their elected officials about the agency’s funding.

“We don’t want to see people lose jobs,” he said. “We don’t want to see [riders] hurt.”

Amy Glidden, co-coordinator for Rhode Island Transit Riders, said she used the lobbying time to discuss some of the misconceptions about the efficiency study that RIPTA is currently undergoing. Gov. Dan McKee stipulated that RIPTA had to complete the study last year, when he allocated federal COVID relief money to the agency. That spending helped plug a then $18 million deficit.

Some of the initial findings of the study were recently sent to the General Assembly and governor’s office. The report was originally due earlier this year but was delayed by the RIPTA board of directors while it appointed and finalized a contract for a permanent CEO.

High-level recommendations include investing in routes that are already high performing, potentially reducing service on lower-performing routes, maintaining a pilot program that expanded paratransit service beyond fixed-route corridors to the whole state, and expanding various commuter programs.

The governor and some elected officials had said they wanted to use the study as a means of determining RIPTA’s upcoming fiscal year budget.

But Glidden said the study itself and the delay are “not an excuse” to leave RIPTA at a deficit.

Cedric Ye, a RIPTA rider and advocate who takes the bus to and from his high school, told ecoRI News that money was allocated for the Washington Bridge rebuild without requiring the Rhode Island Department of Transportation to complete an efficiency study.

“There’s still enough time to close the hole,” Rhode Island AFL-CIO president Patrick Crowley told ecoRI News.

Crowley, who also sits on RIPTA’s board of directors, said there are conversations happening on the floors of both chambers of the General Assembly and behind closed doors on RIPTA funding.

“I’m going to keep pushing until the final gavel comes down,” he said.