Board chief assails Muni budget for ‘triple whammy’
By: Joshua Sabatini
May 7, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — Muni’s budget is poised for rejection after coming under attack Wednesday for a “triple whammy” of fare hikes, service reductions and increased spending on city services.
“The current budget significantly cuts services, raises fares and is still hemorrhaging millions of dollars to other departments for services that are not related to transit,” Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said during the board’s Budget and Finance Committee hearing Wednesday. “This is a triple whammy that is not acceptable.”
The committee forwarded a motion to the full board, previously introduced by Chiu, to reject the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget. Chiu said he had the seven votes needed to kill the budget.
The threat of the rejection, however, has prompted negotiations between board members and MTA director Nathaniel Ford.
Supervisors are particularly angered over an increase in how much city departments charge the transit agency for services, called work orders, such as police and public health. The work orders increased to $80 million, up $30 million from the fiscal year that ended in June.
The agency did decrease the work order payments by about $14 million prior to adopting its budget, although the supervisors said that’s not good enough.
The supervisors praised recent improvements made to the transit system, such as a better on-time performance, but worried the budget would erode the progress made.
The full Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on rejecting the MTA budget at its meeting Tuesday.
