Hours waiting for delayed buses or buses that never come; jobs lost, classes missed and grades that suffered; annexed city neighborhoods that the buses don’t even reach, leaving people to walk; people who spend as much time waiting for and riding city buses as they do at the jobs that public transit system carries them to. Those were some of the stories peppering public testimony as Santa Fe City Council considered an ordinance late Wednesday that would ensure the city’s transit system’s funds are no longer reappropriated to the general fund.
“The voters have approved this tax. We were promised this funding would go to transit, and that promise has been broken,” SonyaMarÍa Martinez, a community organizer and member of Chainbreaker Collective, told councilors. “The only difference to the water fund issue is that the water fund has a surplus and transit has been shorted. … Our people depend on you to remedy this issue, to recognize we are underfunded.”
Martinez was one of about 20 people who showed up, several with children in tow, to speak to the issue, and many of whom had to leave by the time the agenda item crept to the floor at just after 10 pm. Fellow Chainbreaker Collective members read statements on their behalf about their frustrations with long travel times, abbreviated weekend and holiday schedules, and bus routes that don’t even reach their neighborhoods. It was nearly midnight by the time councilors voted 5-3 to approve the ordinance.
Those who voted against the ordinance said it wasn’t about what was cast and widely accepted as a social justice issue, which is the ability of the city’s lower income residents to rely on its bus services for lower cost, reliable transportation, but the concern that with pending budget talks, this would handcuff the Finance Committee’s ability to address a portion of the city’s looming $15 million deficit, which, in guaranteeing this $1.25 million to buses, climbs still higher to $16.25 million.
Councilor Joseph Maestas brought the resolution, which calls to re-commit the 1.25 percent of gross receipts taxes collected that voters approved in 1991 to pay for transportation to paying for transit and recreational facilities instead of being redistributed to the general fund. He was joined with support from Councilors Peter Ives, Bill Dimas, Carmichael Dominguez and Chris Rivera.
“The intent is to consider the needs of transit first, and if the needs are met ... then any excess can go to quality of life programs,” Maestas said. As it is, he argued, “We’re balancing the budget on the backs of folks that rely on public transportation.”
The ongoing reallocation of transit’s funding was compared to the city’s choice this year to reallocate $4.7 million from the water fund to cover a shortfall in the budget that had led to the state initially rejecting the city’s proposed budget. That was an embarrassment, Maestas said, and this measure was aimed at stopping something councilors agreed then they should put a stop to.
“This is allowing people to survive. It’s keeping people in work. It’s keeping them in school,” said Tomás Rivera, director of Chainbreaker Collective. “We know this is something the people voted on and voted on with the intention of this going toward transit.”
The particular question of public transportation funding came to Maestas’ attention last year, he said, when councilors had to borrow money to purchase buses, and the length of the loan outlasted the expected lifetime of the bus. And right now, six months into the city’s budget, they’ve received about $2.5 million above projected gross receipts, allowing plenty of room to give the $1.25 million promised to transportation, Maestas argued.
Mayor Javier Gonzales took issue with the limitations the ordinance placed on the city budget as he looks to craft a three-year plan for realigning current gross receipts with current spending.
“This resolution takes out the Finance Committee’s ability to use this flexibility in upcoming budget discussions,” Gonzales said. “It seems that these types of big budget implications, while they’re appropriate and right and I support it, it seems like it needs to be part of the budget fix in totality as opposed to the piecemealing it.”
He voted against the measure, as did Councilors Signe Lindell and Ronald Trujillo. Councilor Patti Bushee was absent.
Maestas countered that it gives city planners a better idea of the true financial condition of the city, adding, “If we don’t show discipline now, how are we going to show discipline in the budget hearings? … Why not limit the scope of our problem by addressing this now?”
If transit is somehow unable to spend all the money it’s allocated, that can still then go into the general fund, Domiguez added. As chair of the Finance Committee, he was repeatedly called upon to weigh in on whether the ordinance damages the city’s ability to address its budget shortfalls.
“I don’t see any harm in this bill,” he said. “What this does is start to establish some sort of frameworking to make sure that we have some sort of priorities.”
His only suggestion was to amend a comment about dedicating funds to pedestrian pathways to prioritize paths that lead to bus stops.
It’s unlikely the additional funds will increase services, Jon Bulthuis, transportation department director, told councilors.
“Given the state of federal funding that we’ve lost coming into the system, our best hope is just keep in the state of good repair what we have so the services we have now on the street can be dependable,” Bulthuis said. City Manager Brian Snyder added that the additional $1.25 million could be used to replace buses needed to continue existing community services.
The dedication means the Finance Committee will have a $6 million shortfall to address this year as part of a three-year strategy to tame the now $16.25 million deficit. Solving all $16.25 million in a single year would take draconian measures, Dominguez said, but this ordinance doesn’t quite go that far.
“Why stop here then? Let’s say we’re not longer going to use CIP [Capital Improvement Projects] for general operations or stormwater,” Gonzales said. “So what we’re about to go through is set a precedent that there isn’t going to be a multiyear strategy to fix our budget. … I don’t think it’s fair to say we’re only going to do it for the bus.”
Apparently, neither did Maestas, who closed out the meeting introducing ordinances aimed at putting the limitations on bridging money from stormwater fees to anything else and repaying loans from the water fund.
Santa Fe Reporter