LA Metro to hold public hearing on proposed FY11 budget

Written by jrood

Los Angeles Metro will hold a public hearing on a draft $3.75-billion budget for Fiscal Year 2010-11 on May 19 at Metro Headquarters next to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. The public can view copies of the budget proposal at Metro.net or request a copy. Metro directors will consider adopting the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2010, at their May 27 meeting.

Against the backdrop of
the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Metro has seen a sharp
drop in local transportation sales taxes and farebox revenue compounded by cuts
in state transit funding. As a consequence, Metro faced an historic $181-million
operating deficit but CEO Art Leahy has managed to balance the budget by severely
cutting administrative costs including the elimination of 20 percent of the
agency’s non-contract staff, 240 full-time equivalent positions.

For the second year in a
row, the budget assumes no wage increase. However, Metro is negotiating new
contracts this spring with its major labor unions representing operators,
maintenance employees and clerks.

The cash fare for regular
riders will be increased 25 cents to $1.50; a day pass will be $6, up one
dollar; the Metro weekly pass will be $20, up $3; and a monthly pass will be
$75, up $13. The new fares will still be among the lowest charged by any major
transit agency in the nation. Even under the new fare structure, riders will
only pay 28 percent of the cost of operating Metro buses and trains. The rest
is subsidized by other funding sources, primarily local sales tax revenue. 

Leahy has proposed a
spending plan that is $99 million, 2.63 percent, less than the current Metro
budget but still advances a variety of transportation improvements for the
region including a spate of new highway and transit building projects. These
are funded largely with federal stimulus funds and the new Measure R transit
sales tax.

Metro will program $600
million in local Measure R sales tax monies in FY 11. These include monies to
advance planning and construction for more than two dozen transit and highway
projects plus monies to subsidize bus operations and $87 million in local
return monies that will be given the various cities in Los Angeles County to
use for major street resurfacing, pothole repair, improving traffic congestion,
bikeways, pedestrian improvements, signal synchronization and transit
improvements.

Among major transportation
advances in the coming fiscal year, Metro will purchase 125 new compressed
natural gas buses, order new rail cars, continue construction funding for the
Expo light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and a four-mile
extension of the popular Metro Orange Line busway from Canoga Park to
Chatsworth, oversee construction of a 10-mile northbound carpool lane on the
I-405 freeway from the 10 to 101 freeways and advance numerous planning studies
for new transit projects throughout Los Angeles County. Construction of an
11-mile Foothill extension of the Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Azuza also
will begin this summer.

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