Metro is seeking an 8 percent increase in its next operating budget to run the transit system, a cost that likely will be borne by riders and taxpayers.
The proposed budget would entail the biggest jump in the cost of operating the system in the prior four budget years, according to an analysis by The Washington Examiner.
The preliminary plan, outlined last week, calls for a $1.56 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, more than the current $1.43 billion budget. That’s a far bigger increase than the 1-3 percent increases year-over-year it actually cost to operate the system since the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
| Metro operating costs | ||
| Fiscal year* | Operating costs | Increase |
| 2008-09 | $1.35B | 15% |
| 2009-10 | $1.38B | 2% |
| 2010-11 | $1.42B | 3% |
| 2011-12 Current budget | $1.43B | 1% |
| Proposed 2012-13 | $1.56B | 8% |
| *Starts July 1 | ||
Of course, those numbers may change before the final budget is approved by the end of June. But already, the agency is planning to raise riders’ fares.
“We are looking at fare increases because the costs of paying for our system is increasing,” Chief Financial Officer Carol Dillon Kissal told The Examiner.
The agency also plans to ask local taxpayers to shoulder about 9 percent more in contributions, with the request for regional subsidies rising to about $750 million. That’s the second consecutive year of outsized increases. To fund the current budget, Metro relied on a 15 percent increase to the subsidies instead of cutting service or raising fares.
A variety of increasing costs are driving up the price tag of service, Dillon Kissal said. In the coming year, the agency is proposing $35 million in new initiatives that include bolstering its security force, adding more escalator maintenance and fighting worker fatigue.
The Dulles Rail Project is adding an estimated $20 million to the next budget, mainly due to hiring and training costs to prepare for the under-construction Silver Line.
Over the past decade, operating costs to run the transit system will have increased by about 77 percent from $879.6 million in the 2003-2004 fiscal year.
Separately, the costs of the agency’s capital budgets that fund the rebuilding of the tracks, trains and buses have also been rising.
Inflation accounts for more than 23 percent of the increasing operating costs, but the biggest spikes have been in labor costs. Salaries and wages have increased, under the collective bargaining agreements with Metro’s unions. The pension system and health care costs also have risen.
Some of the costs have jumped as the agency has increased its workforce, adding more workers to compensate for past “underinvestment” in the system, Dillon Kissal said.
Over the past decade, MetroAccess costs nearly tripled as ridership grew up as much as 20 percent in a single year, she said. Ridership on the paratransit service has stabilized in the past year, after the agency raised fares and limited its service area.
The agency hasn’t expanded where its rail service travels since 2004 with the extension of the Blue Line to Largo Town Center and the new Red Line station at New York Avenue.
But the agency has increased the number of eight-car trains, she said, with rail revenue miles jumping from 64 million miles in 2003 to about 82 million currently. The agency plans to add more eight-car trains in the next budget as part of the Yellow/Blue line realignment planned for next summer.
