This is how government throws away money. A government bus agency will continue to get hard earned tax dollars. But those giving the money and taking the money know that will not be enough to save this government agency from going belly up.
““I’m optimistic that some kind of regional measure will be able to make it onto the 2026 ballot,” transit activist Kat Segal told The Examiner. “I’m not terribly optimistic that it will provide a lot of funding for Muni specifically.”
The SFMTA’s financial outlook got significantly bleaker when the COVID-19 pandemic decimated ridership. While it continues to bounce back, the agency’s revenue is still drastically in the red. That has already led to some cuts, and many more look to be on the way this summer.
Officials said earlier this month they need to slash at least 4% of Muni service by July in order to close a $50 million short-term deficit. The agency also faces a $320 million deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 2026.
Unelected bureaucrats want a tax measure on the ballot, to give more money to a bankrupt government agency. Think voters are that stupid?
Regional subsidies likely to help Muni, but not save it
By Greg Wong, SF Examiner, 2/13/25 https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/transit/regional-tax-measure-saving-sfmta-from-muni-cuts-unlikely/article_38b81efa-e9a7-11ef-949f-e7ca6f67d927.html
A tax measure that could plug much of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s fiscal shortfall appears extremely unlikely to ever make it to the ballot, legislators said.
That reality has left San Francisco transit stakeholders focusing on alternative solutions as they work to piece together funding to ensure The City’s public-transit system as we know it is here to stay.
“I’m optimistic that some kind of regional measure will be able to make it onto the 2026 ballot,” transit activist Kat Segal told The Examiner. “I’m not terribly optimistic that it will provide a lot of funding for Muni specifically.”
The SFMTA’s financial outlook got significantly bleaker when the COVID-19 pandemic decimated ridership. While it continues to bounce back, the agency’s revenue is still drastically in the red. That has already led to some cuts, and many more look to be on the way this summer.
Officials said earlier this month they need to slash at least 4% of Muni service by July in order to close a $50 million short-term deficit. The agency also faces a $320 million deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 2026.
Amid local and state budget shortfalls — as well as a presidential administration with which The City already has a contentious relationship — San Francisco leaders and transit organizers have pinned much of their hopes on a Bay Area-wide tax measure that would earmark funds for all of the region’s transit agencies.
Though the SFMTA is in a particularly dire financial state, the region’s leading transit agencies — such as BART and Caltrain — face similar fiscal uncertainties. That’s why the Metropolitan Transportation Commission — the agency overseeing Bay Area transit — is aiming to place a ballot measure benefitting all nine counties.
Yet finalizing a tax measure with consensus from all jurisdictions is easier said than done. State Sen. Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco and part of San Mateo County, tried to push such a measure onto the November 2024 ballot — but it was scrapped that May due to infighting among legislators.
A San Francisco measure that would’ve raised taxes for Uber, Lyft and Waymo to fund the SFMTA failed, leaving the agency without any concrete financial lifeline.
But hopes for a regional funding measure have been renewed this year. Last month, Wiener and East Bay state Sen. Jesse Arreguin introduced Senate Bill 63, which authorizes a regional transit funding measure to be placed on the 2026 ballot. The measure’s details are still being ironed out, according to MTC director of legislation and public affairs Rebecca Long.
The potential scenarios are largely similar to last year’s proposals, with one substantial difference: Santa Clara County almost surely won’t be involved. While it was never likely from the start, transit leaders and policymakers now seem resigned to the fact that they must move forward with a tax proposal that only involves four Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo.
“Hope springs eternal,” Wiener told The Examiner. “But right now, that’s not really what we’re looking at. Santa Clara County has been clear they don’t want to be a part of this.”
The difference in funding San Francisco would receive under the two separate proposals — each of which would impose a half-cent increase on sales taxes — is huge, according to MTC documents.
The four-county scenario would allocate around $90 million to the SFMTA per year for 10 years starting in 2026.
Another version would create funding for the next 30 years and allow Santa Clara County and the remaining four North Bay counties the ability to opt in. It would also carry a nine-cent per square foot parcel tax increase. If all nine counties elect to take part in the measure, the SFMTA would receive roughly $250 million per year over eight years and a little less after that. That would leave the agency $70 million shy of closing its looming nine-figure deficit.
Siegel called Santa Clara County the “linchpin” of a regional transit bill.
“That’s why it’s so hard to let go of,” Siegel said. “But everything I’m hearing is indicating that that’s not going to be the case.”
Wiener said it’s not for lack of effort. He said he has had “many, many conversations” with Santa Clara County officials over the past year trying to find a way to keep them involved.
“Of course it’s disappointing to me,” Wiener said. “But the county has a right to take whatever position they think is appropriate.”
Voters in Santa Clara County, the Bay Area’s richest and most populous county, already will likely already need to reauthorize a countywide tax measure to help fund the Valley Transportation Authority, the county’s primary transit line. County leaders have said they don’t want two different tax-increase proposals on the 2026 ballot, leading them to prioritize a local measure.
South Bay state Sen. Dave Cortese, who chairs the California Senate’s Transportation Committee, said that the county’s resistance to a regional measure is mostly about politics. Voters are far more likely to pass a tax measure in their own county rather than one supporting rail lines they barely use.
“It’s just a very tough sell,” he told The Examiner. “Most people deal with affordability issues. If they’re going to support a tax, they want to know that they’re going to get something pretty directly in return for that, not delayed gratification.”
