The Metro Board will hold a “pick your poison” public hearing on January 27, asking commuters to decide whether the transit agency should:
a) Cut bus and rail service;
b) Raid its capital fund, which is needed to maintain the agency’s aging infrastructure; or
c) Raise fares via a “surcharge.”
Note that a fourth option – “cut staff” – is not on the list, an interesting omission since The Examiner has confirmed that Metro is in the process of hiring two new “senior planners” even as it faces a projected $175 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year beginning July 1.
Metro says it currently has three senior planners on staff. One of the two new hires (at proposed salaries of $80,000 and $88,000 per year) will be filling a vacancy. But the other is a new position. Expanding staff is particularly inappropriate at a time when the transit agency is contemplating raising fares or cutting back on service and maintenance.
Metro has only laid off 25 workers so far, a ridiculously small number when it is contemplating raiding its capital fund for preventive maintenance. Despite protests to the contrary, Metro is apparently all too happy to siphon off millions from the capital budget if it means saving padded payroll (operating budget) jobs.
What will these new Metro employees be doing?
According to Metro’s official job description, they will be “responsible for participation in the development of an annual business plan in close cooperation with other [Washington Metropolitan Area Transit] Authority offices; identifying opportunities for future growth and development using tools such as new technologies, economic trends, and demographics; defining future strategies for the office to promote to the General Manager and the Board of Directors.”
Translation: Metro is cutting service and raising fares so it can add more bureaucrats to the payroll.
