Metro has about $13.7 million sitting in a “rainy day” fund even as the transit agency considers cutting bus service by $13.6 million to bridge a shortfall in next year’s budget.
And Metro is expecting to have $9 million more in surplus money by the end of June because of unexpected increases in bus and rail ridership.
Any extra money usually goes back to the jurisdictions that subsidize the transit agency — or into the already-full emergency fund. Now transit advocates are wondering whether some of the money could stop the service cuts instead.
“Certainly if the jurisdictions are going to get an unexpected windfall at the end of the year, the money should be used to reverse these cuts,” said Ben Ross, with the Transit First! coalition formed to oppose such cuts. “There’s no question of that.”
Riders have been begging the board to do something other than cut their bus lines. More than 400 people attended public hearings and 2,600 submitted written comments to fight the proposed cuts that would affect 72 bus lines.
The transit agency’s board of directors is scheduled to vote on the service cuts Thursday. But at this point, the board has no plans to use the extra money to plug the budget shortfall.
Peter Benjamin, a Metro board member who represents Maryland, says it’s too early to count on the projected surplus.
“There is no guarantee that money is available,” said Benjamin, the agency’s former finance officer. “I’ve seen bigger numbers than that disappear before the end of the year.”
He also doesn’t think the board should tap into the reserves. If anything, he said, the fund should be larger.
The reserves fund totaled $13.7 million at the end of the last fiscal year, said Metro Chief Financial Officer Carol Kissal. That means it is close to its maximum allowance: 1 percent of the annual operating budget. To add more, the board would need to change its rules.
Even Ross conceded Metro needs to have a financial cushion. “There’s going to be another rainy day in 2010,” he said.
Board members have discussed using that money. But Benjamin said they were focused instead on increasing local subsidies or cutting the bus service, as proposed. He said Maryland, for one, may have some “wiggle room” to restore some of its proposed cuts.
