With substantial ridership and sales tax revenue losses due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, BART’s current projected fiscal year 2020-2021 budget includes more than $100 million in cuts while avoiding layoffs and furloughs, BART officials said Thursday.
The BART Board of Directors received a report on the budget at its Thursday meeting, with proposed cuts to multiple sectors of the agency.
Expenses in the proposed budget have been cut by $145 million from those outlined in the agency’s $1.016 billion preliminary budget, which the board reviewed roughly two weeks ago.
Labor spending, down $35 million, and capital allocations, down $92 million, took the two largest hits among the agency’s planned expenditures. The addition of $44 million in coronavirus-related spending brought BART’s proposed expenses to $915 million, a 10 percent drop from the preliminary budget.
“We’re one of the few transit agencies that takes money out of our operating budget and puts it towards capital priorities,” BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman said. “We have the commitment and hopefully very soon we’ll be able to reinstitute (those projects).”
The status of further budget cuts for BART as the pandemic continues are heavily dependent on federal funding support, according to agency officials. The cuts are not expected to continue to next year’s budget, but that is also contingent on future federal funding.
While a one-year hiring freeze for BART station employees and police officers is expected to save the agency about $36 million, BART expects to receive a total of $239 million in federal funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
On Wednesday, BART General Manager Bob Powers called the budget “precariously balanced” and heavily reliant on the agency’s allocations from the CARES Act.
With a budget adoption deadline of June 25, BART may make further adjustments to the proposal as needed. Powers said the board will receive quarterly budget updates going forward as the pandemic continues.
“We’re going to work to shape what we can shape,” Powers told the board Thursday. “We’re going to monitor and react quickly to those items that we cannot shape.”
BART officials said trains will remain on a 30-minute base schedule for the immediate future as ridership hovers around 90 percent below normal.
BART officials expect train service to begin increasing back toward a 15-minute base schedule by September, when the agency expects the state to further relax its coronavirus shelter-in-place order.
On its current timeline, the agency would not need to bulk up its staff of train conductors until early 2021, provided the virus’ spread begins to dissipate or a treatment such as a vaccine is developed and available on a large scale.
On Wednesday, BART announced a 15-point plan to earn ridership trust back and give passengers confidence that trains will be safe when they return to riding BART regularly.
The plan builds on the health and safety protocols BART enacted as the pandemic began in earnest in mid-March such as more frequent disinfection and sanitization of train cars and stations and making hand sanitizer available at all stations.
“We knew that there were issues with safety and cleanliness even before the pandemic hit,” Board Director Janice Li told BART officials Thursday. “So early and often, please engage my board colleagues and myself on what we can do to encourage the safe return of our riders.”
The board must approve the budget by June 25. Fiscal year 2021 will begin July 1.
burn it down.
I’d love to think that BART will learn from this and become more fiscally responsible, but that won’t be what happens. They’ll continue to mismanage the funds they beg for from the taxpayers, local and national. Then, they’ll mismanage the funds they generate from soaking the riders that have no other choice.
I think it’s time for the tracks to be made available to all who would like to use them and BART should start renting those old timey pump trolleys. Get a workout on the way to work!
Payouts first, then layoffs and furloughs should be considered and used. Too much bloat in this agency…
Pay cuts…
You must not have a spouse who works their ass off for this agency for the last 10 years all the while dealing with their horrific Management and many other issues I cannot get into here so you can take your “pay cut” suggestion and shove it.
+1 for Pay Cuts
Earning over $100k 30%
Under $100k 15%
No-one is riding, nor will they for many months. Why are people being paid the same? This is asinine.
BART provides a great service. If they had listened to the public back when – people were begging for safety, cleanliness in the stations, reductions in crime and fare evading. Many commuters, like me, simply stopped riding when we were ignored. Now, they are taking these measures more seriously and they’re right, it will take time to get the riders back.
I wouldn’t be so sure BART recovers, at least not to the ridership levels it is use to.
This “pandemic” exposes a giant weakness of both mass transportation and mega city living. The spread of communicable diseases.
There is no panacea vaccine and there never will be.
What are they taking serious? I see no mention of drug use or smoking or evaders… Bart will always be a joke so long as it is a public entity.
Wow yeah fed money to give bonuses to the board and dept heads and then make cuts to employees
Oh uhhh and we Bart need more fed money
Notice how they are not mentioning any democrat that holds a position i this state or any democrat at all
Just fed money will save them
Hey how about an audit and a outside management team to straighten barts preverbal tracks
Ahhhhh we are a democrat social transit system ….only federal money will save us ahhhhhh
I hope everyone refuses to ride Bart and forces newscum to act and admonish Bart for abusing and mismanaging the business and putting it on riders to pay for their corruption
Refuse the bonuses ….should be the rally cry
This whole time while we were at home out of work trying to figure out how we are going to make it and feed the kids and keep the shelter over their heads
And Bart was just complaining about reduced ridership and demanded fed money to survive while not making any cuts to labor or wages
Bart should be asking newscum for money or at least the city council or ccc board
Side stepping any democrat and demanding fed money is the slap in the face of all of us
They spent millions to build parking structures and now make you pay for it
They spent nothing to n providing security for those vehicles
They raised prices and offered free rides to who ever jumped the gate
They allowed bums to shoot up in the elevators for handicapped so they shut them down to everyone else
They allow bums to ride the trains as they urinate among other things as well as harassing the paying riders
They refuse to hold themselves or the state responsible for the repeated labor strikes that only result in board and maangment bonuses and an extended contract with a few crumbs for the regular employees
It’s way over due for a reality check On Bart
from paying riders Being treated so poorly and footing the burden and bill
Bart can offer fee rides for Month
and I would avoid because obviously everything would be jumped up in cost
the next month
Potus tell demifornia to suck it
They want you to bend over when ever they want something while not offering you anything in return but poison and a knife in the back
We are hearty American citizens here and are tired of their crap as well
Cut them off
Then we will see the rats eat each other so to speak
( no rats were actually harmed before …during or after this post )
Show Bart and the democrat panhandlers we the people demand more than diversity claims and Covid lockdowns
With no results from them
As their actions and affiliated agencies flop around like freaked out chickens
Spewing Ridiculous comments and claims and restrictions and brow beating
And yes we the people want the tracks to be used by someone else
Dismantle Bart
You will feel better for it
And any politician who backs that will be getting the votes
Follow the money
Wow Bart I mean has it been so long abusing the riders
you just don’t hide the laughing and demeaning of Americans
BART will soon be celebrating 50 years of
allowing fare evasion. They show absolutely
NO fiscal responsibility. It’s all fun & games
when you’re spending someone else’s money.
Just continue to ask for more federal funding.
Now Director Janice Li says, “We knew that
there were issues with safety and cleanliness
even before the pandemic hit”. Then she says,
“So early and often, please engage my board
colleagues and myself on what we can do to
encourage the safe return of our riders”.
This is coming from the Director of BART.
It just shows she knows about the problems
but hasn’t got a clue or the desire to solve them.
Just what is she getting paid for? Almost 50
years of allowing fare evasion. Thanks for
doing nothing but asking for more funding Janice.
She’s literally the worst of the bunch. When a cop asked a guy to stop eating because he spilled food all over the place to protest the cop she bought sandwiches and had a “eat in” in San Francisco. She has zero clue! Neither does Director Simmon, she thinks the poor should ride free and the working class should all pay for it and doesn’t think fare evasion is a problem.
BART should have already laid-off or furloughed employees. That’s an obvious, no-brainer. And so why am I not surprised?
One-year pay cuts, with an extension if ridership and the economy (tax receipts) don’t improve should also be in the mix. But hey, if you have the power to tax people, and then INCREASE taxes yet again, all to support a transportation system which resembles a cruise ship without the booze, buffet line, or attractions, then it all makes sense I guess.
They better have contingency plans, the ridership will not recover quickly, I already know of commuters carpooling, they will not readily return, they need to address the gorrilla in the room, bloated Labor Costs
BART had Zero, Zilch, Nada Concerns about the Public when they held them all hostage during their strike a few years ago. Glad to see Karma dealing with them.
NO MORE BAILOUTS. Maybe start with making All riders pay the Fare. Time to trim All of the excess……which there is plenty of.
Salty here.
Hmmm. Right after Trump signs 700 mil to bail them out.
BART Management needs to be taken over by an outside agency and also be audited.
LOCK the bums up!!!
Salty out!!
BART does not have a clue and never will.
It’s funny how many people trash the frontline employees. Management at BART is so top heavy and it just continues to get worse. BART now has like 8 assistant general managers, when I started there was 2 and it just gets worse from there. Meanwhile they have less cleaners and police. They don’t hire enough people and make employees work OT and that’s where you get the 100k plus a year, not to mention they include benefits in that number. If employees didn’t work overtime it would be even worse. People are scared to ride because it’s dangerous and filthy, how do you think the employees feel they are getting attacked in record numbers by crazy people and people on drugs. You want to know why that agent is rude it’s because they are being put through so much they are all ready to have a breakdown. There’s also suicides all the time now and they witness that and train operators actually deal with hitting them. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. When the economy goes down everyone gets mad that agents make 70k a year and when the economy is good they are trash. It’s time people get mad at the Board of Directors and top management that make horrible decisions, like giving the criminals free rain over BART! Millions are lost from fare evasion alone! When a cop enforces the rules they get in trouble. So write the Board and demand better. Don’t blame the front line.
I agree that Bart has been mismanaged for years and has taken for granted and advantage of the fact that they are the only form of mass transit in the Bay Area connecting many cities and counties. They do not truly deserve these bailout funds because they have taken their ridership for granted for too long. They have let their stations, parking garages become susceptible to theft and crime. They have let their stations become cesspits of filth, drug addicts, needles and trash. People that pay have to put up with people who use the trains as toilets and as places to shoot up drugs, takeover seats as cots and have continually let their trains become unsafe. Who in their right mind would want to ride them in those circumstances let alone now with Covid 19. They will have to work hard to prove that they care about their ridership and won’t take them for granted again or abuse those funds in any way shape or form or it is over for BART.
I read the 15 point plan, there was absolutely nothing new or confidence inspiring, all lip service and fluff. It’s nice to see Janet Li acknowledge they knew about cleanliness and safety issues and were doing nothing about it though.
just defund the high speed rail fiasco and BART could get all the money it needs.
“And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? It’s called riding the gravy train!”.