Will Newsom play chicken with the MTA budget?By Steven T. Jones
As the Board of Supervisors prepares to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget this Tuesday, word is the Mayor’s Office and MTA are threatening to play chicken and not try in good faith to develop a new budget before the current one expires at the end of the month (in which case, the city General Fund would pay for current Muni service levels, thus expanding the city’s budget deficit).
“We don’t have a course of action charted for if the Board of Supervisors rejects this budget,” MTA spokesperson Judson True said. When I asked whether the board would get together next week to try to develop a budget (its next meeting is May 19), he said, “Whether the MTA board convenes or not is up to the MTA board.”
And that board is made up entirely of mayoral appointees, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. The Mayor’s Office has not answered our inquiries, and MTA director Nat Ford hasn’t been available to supervisors or anyone else. He even cancelled a long-planned interview tonight on the City Desk News Hour, on which I’ll be discussing this issue tonight (7 p.m. on Comcast Channel 11).
It’s not as if the MTA and Newsom didn’t see this coming. More than a month ago, Board President David Chiu visited the MTA and said the Board of Supervisors would reject the budget if it relied too heavily on Muni service cuts and fare hikes and if it continued to subsidize other city agencies through ballooning work orders.
At yesterday’s Budget and Finance Committee hearing (watch it here), some telling facts emerged:
- The $126 million budget deficit was closed by Muni riders (through service cuts and fare hike) rather than motorists (MTA governs all parking revenue) by a ratio of more than 4-1.
- Since 2007, when voters approved Prop. A, whose centerpiece was to increase funding for Muni by about $26 million per year, work orders from unrelated city departments (the biggest being the SFPD) have increased by $32 million per year to $78 million (a figure trimmed to $66 million at Chiu’s prompting, but still ridiculously high. So Muni never got the money you tried to give it.
- The millions of dollars that the MTA is paying to the SFPD every year is voluntary considering there is no MOU between the two agencies, negotiations for which have been going on for more than a year. “It’s a very difficult negotiation,” Ford said.
- The 311 call center -- a mayoral pet project -- bills the MTA $1.97 for every Muni-related call they receive, a service that Ford say he still wants even though the same information is available at a fraction of the price by calling 511.
- MTA’s fare inspection service costs about $8 million per year, but raises only about $350,000 a year in fines. “We are throwing good money after bad until we fix this program,” Chiu said.
- The MTA did not do analysis of how the budget would impact disadvantaged communities that rely most heavily on transit before approving service cuts that hit those communities the hardest (and spare many little used routes in wealthier areas).
- Simple changes in the budget that Chiu suggested would total about $26 million.
It’s also striking how much Ford – the highest paid city employee at $316,000 per year – had to rely on this staffers for basic information, and how he defended work order payouts that he was barely able to explain when questioned. “It is my sense that we are paying for services that the MTA needs,” Ford said. But one suspects that he really meant the MTA is paying for services that their bosses in the Mayor’s Office say they have to pay for to help balance this year’s budget without new taxes (which the mayor has opposed, at least for everyone except Muni riders).
The bottom line is Prop. A created a process by which supervisors have oversight over MTA budget priorities and they’ve clearly outlined their problems with the current budget (it’s so clear that the six progressives have been joined by sometime mayoral allies Sups. Bevan Dufty and Sophie Maxwell in recommending rejection of the MTA budget).
There’s plenty of time for the MTA to now act in good faith and develop a better budget. If that doesn’t happen, it’s because Newsom is playing petulant political games and manipulating what is supposed to be an independent body.
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Comments (8)
Look, the MTA is what it is, for better and for worse.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. The voters have expressed that they wanted the MTA to be a stand alone agency independent from political influence. This is why the Board of Supervisors confirms all board appointees and those directors can only be removed for cause.
What we have now, is an MTA that views itself as an adjunct of room 200 rather than an independent agency and a MTA Board that views itself as serving at the pleasure of the Mayor. Even SFBC ED Leah Shahum submitted her resignation when commanded to by Newsom. My read is that any director who resigned at the behest of the Mayor did so in an act of Official Misconduct as they were charged to defend and protect the SF Charter when sworn in.
In addition to independence which has never been realized, the voters gave the MTA a significant set aside for Muni as well as a firewall from budgetary interference.
Now we're seeing Newsom raiding the MTA to fund other departments instead of Nat Ford making his case to the directors that those funds are best used as required by charter, to run the railway.
The MTA directors cannot be removed but for cause. Nat Ford cannot be fired by Newsom. What do we need to do in order to create a reality at the MTA where the Board exercises its independence and the CEO is free to spend dedicated funds to run the Muni?
-marc
Posted by marcos | May 7, 2009 07:04 PM
What you need,
is a new Mayor. Get the campaign going now. The Mayor's office already gave you their response. They'll shave 30 million off the asses of the poor to keep MTA running and blame it on you.
Put the blame where it belongs. Newsom is funding staff for his next political stepping stone and bribes to various unions and the like on the backs of ordinary MUNI riders.
What won't happen is that no cop in SF will lose his job, his overtime or forgo anything. Gavin needs them in his run for Sacramento.
h.
Posted by hbrown | May 7, 2009 09:54 PM
Just to pick at a small point, does the 311 program even have a budget? I agree that its coverage of Muni questions is redundant to 311, but that's kind of the point. Pretty much everything 311 does replicates a service offered elsewhere by the city, but with a friendly face - which is why people like it.
If people do like it and it's generally agreed that 311 should stick around, the question becomes 'did anyone think about how they were going to pay for it?'
Was it supposed to make up for all of its costs by passing work orders out to relevant departments? That seems like a spectacularly bad idea, essentially a back door mandate for each department to increase spending without any promise of new revenue to cover it.
If 311 works and people like it, why doesn't it pay for its own operation with its own budget? The way it seems to me is that someone created MoviePhone and then tried to send out a bill to every movie theater in town for the 'service.'
Posted by JoshB | May 8, 2009 11:46 AM
Update: So Newsom flack Nate Ballard finally got back to me. Here's our e-mail exchange:
Me: "Is it true that the Mayor's Office is threatening to encourage the MTA not to immediately develop a new budget if the Board of Supervisors rejects it on Tuesday?
If so, why would you want to make the General Fund budget deficit larger?"
Ballard: "No, that's not true."
Me: "So then [Newsom Chief of Staff] Steve Kawa didn't tell that to David Chiu and his staff? And is it the position of the Mayor's Office that if the budget is rejected then you encourage the MTA board to convene immediately to develop a new
budget?"
Ballard: "I reject your characterization of Steve Kawa's conversation with President Chiu as "threatening." Since I disagree with the foundation of your argument, I cannot responsibly respond to questions that flow from that underlying prevarication.
We are currently operating under the assumption that the supervisors will approve the MTA's sensible budget. If they reject the budget, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'm not going to entertain hypotheticals about exactly what the Mayor will or won't do in the event the supervisors
make the mistake of rejecting the MTA budget."
So there we go. The Mayor's Office is now on the record supporting an MTA budget that is drained of all the money for Muni that Newsom asked voters to approve through Prop. A in 2007, which is a double whammy to the system following cuts in state funding. And Ballard quickly went from denying the Mayor's Office threat to the Board of Supervisors to playing semantic games and refusing to honestly address the issue (or to retract his lie in the face of specific information that showed he was lying). Also, this bridge is coming on Tuesday, so they might want to think now about which of the following messages to send when then cross it:
- "Delay, deny, and don't let the Board of Supervisors think they're in charge."
- "Try to come up with a budget that will pass muster with supervisors before the end of the month so you don't make the city budget deficit worse."
- "You're an independent agency charged with creating the best possible transportation system for San Francisco, so do what you think is best and don't feel a need to pad the budgets of other city departments. I'm the mayor, and it's my job to figure out how to balance the city budget without raiding your agency's coffers."
Posted by Steven T. Jones | May 8, 2009 02:16 PM
Gotta admit,
Don't think I've ever seen an MTA budget sent back. Show's David Chiu's acumen. Last year Peskin was furious with MTA but when he voted against their budget I believe only Daly joined him.
They want to threaten? The Board should hold hearings on bringing back jitneys. Only requiring operators to have about a billion in insurance killed the industry.
h.
Posted by hbrown | May 8, 2009 04:37 PM
I REALLY hate that MTA and the Mayor have decided that Muni-dependent San Franciscans are people they can fiscally shake down with impunity.
What can ordinary Muni-riding citizens do to bring maximum public embarrassment to MTA and the Mayor's Office?
Posted by Peter | May 8, 2009 05:18 PM
Peter,
What you can do is make a bunch of placards that say: 'Car Pool' to put in your front window as you
drive downtown. Others tired or waiting for buses raise same placards and you're into an 'off-the-books' transportation company of your own.
MUNI needs competition and it drove out all of that long ago. Bring it back.
h.
Posted by hbrown | May 11, 2009 11:56 PM
- MTA’s fare inspection service costs about $8 million per year, but raises only about $350,000 a year in fines. “We are throwing good money after bad until we fix this program,” Chiu said.
Those of us on the Car-Free Living discussion list know that David Chiu -- and many of us in the audience -- misunderstood the purpose of the $8.8 million spent on the proof-of-payment program. It is not about fining fare evaders and making a profit, but about making Muni run more quickly and efficiently -- thereby attracting more riders -- by speeding up the boarding process.
A professional on the Car-Free Living discussion list clarified this last week.
Posted by Sue | May 12, 2009 12:57 AM