TransLink should be overhauled to give area mayors more oversight powers and to place provincial government representatives along side them, a review has found.

If adopted, the recommendations would make Victoria take some direct responsibility for TransLink decision making – something the province has always shunned – while ensuring the mayors keep majority control of the purse strings.

The report of B.C. Comptroller General Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland recommends the provincial government put its own representatives on the Mayors' Council on Regional Transportation – no more than 20 per cent – and that it be renamed the "Transit Authority" to reflect the expanded membership.

The expanded mayors' council with provincial reps would then get full and direct power to hire and fire directors who serve on TransLink's professional board, set board pay levels and oversee the board.

In effect, it would push mayors and provincial reps into the same room to jointly oversee TransLink and hopefully find common ground.

The report says the strategy should create "avenues for increased communication and a forum to allow for building of shared priorities."

Wenezenki-Yolland also says it would strengthen accountability and reduce uncertainty about who is in charge.

The review was ordered in July by transportation minister Shirley Bond, who replaced former minister Kevin Falcon this year.

Falcon led the last shakeup at TransLink, sweeping away the former board of elected politicians in 2008 in favour of professional business-oriented appointees.

The report says that board should remain in charge of operations, the directors' compensation is reasonable, but the number of senior executives in TransLink and its subsidiaries is "excessive."

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, the mayors' council chair, said the changes would make TransLink more accountable.

"There are good recommendations in there that serve to reinforce some of the things we've been asking for," Watts said. "It's a starting point and a way forward."

The former TransLink board was also supposed to have had provincial representation.

Three seats on the old board were always reserved for Victoria's representatives, but successive governments in Victoria refused to fill them, choosing instead to let the mayors and councillors govern TransLink and take the blame for its problems.

The report also urges the independent TransLink Commissioner's office, which advises the mayors, be merged with a similar office that oversees BC Ferries, and that the office get more powers to examine TransLink's costs and service levels.

The current system of 10-year rolling plans would be scaled down to a three-year time frame.

The report scolds TransLink for not taking earlier action to contain costs by trimming service, thereby allowing its finances to spiral dangerously out of control.

The mayors' council last month approved a "life support" plan to raise an extra $130 million for TransLink to avert future deficits.

Mayors and the TransLink board intend to continue lobbying the province to consent to expanded funding mechanisms – like road pricing or regional tolling – to finance a much more ambitious transit expansion they say is required.

The report said the province should review the limits on the revenue sources now available, but it also suggested there's room for property taxes to rise and that new funding sources shouldn't be approved until existing ones are maximized.

The report also found BC Ferries' executive salaries are too high and their bonuses too easy to achieve.

It also suggested the province's legislative requirement that BC Ferries attempt to privatize some runs is impractical and should be dropped.

Bond is studying the recommendations and said a technical working group has been formed to consider changes.

NDP transportation critic Harry Bains said the findings prove TransLink's last overhaul failed to ensure accountability.

"It confirms that TransLink is in a mess," he said. "They were spending money as if there was no tomorrow."