Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Budget And Finance Sub-Committee 20240713

Online. Thinking about the comments from the public about creating walking and biking space. And its not and also thinking about director tomlin and the time to rethink the Mobility System from the ground up. I wanted to request that staff work to kind of develop and the Mobility Plan work and what this will do is key up an opportunity to praise staff for doing that area. And we are able to move with this very interesting world and so quickly in this time of need. And at the same time i think its important for the board to have a discussion and public to be able to weigh in about which streets make sense to prioritize and i just wanted to put out that request to staff and from a personal note, i biked this past weekend with my family all the way out j. F. K. And out to the great highway and got to experience great highway. Which director tomlin reiterated after to that low stress was a real privilege and just made me think what if we could create a low stress Bicycle Network all around the city . As we recover, how do we encourage and just make it safe and really truly comfortable for people to get around the city in a way that is including and affordable. Put that out there and if there is any reactions from my colleagues. Director eaken, i thank you for the comments and those are, i think, we are starting to do that work of planning for the Recovery Period now and would actually love to have the direction of the board to formalize that work and to come back with the presentation. And probably come back with a regular presentation on this topic. What are we doing in order to help San Francisco get through the immediate covid crisis while protecting the health of the public and our work force. And then how are we taking advantage of this unique opportunity between the ratcheting down of shelter in place and the return of Strong Economy in order to build the San Francisco that we all want. I would be happy to come back to you with an update on that. Wonderful. Director heminger . Briefly, i wanted to second director eakens idea. And jeff, i think you anticipated quite a bit of her thinking in some of the earlier comments you were making. And i am a big fan of ask forgiveness, not permission, and i think you have been doing quite a bit of that the last several weeks and i think by necessity and i think we have done it very well. And to get the board engaged and if we are going to take advantage of this opportunity and another phrase is common is if you want to go far, go together, right . That is i think what were going to need to do here. Agreed. President wonderful. Director brinkman. Thank you. It to agree with that. Lets formalize the discussion and present it to the board for feedback and show the public and board of supervisors that we do intend to approach this thoughtfully and creatively. And that we have an Incredible Opportunity here. To echo director eaken, lets hear from the public about how theyre going to feel getting back on Public Transportation. What other modes could they use if those modes were safe and welcoming . Could a lot more people bike . Yes, we know a lot more people could and would bike in the city if we had those safe corridors that connected us. Would a lot more people walk if the traffic were as reduced as it has been the past five weeks . Its been amazing to walk for essential trips and to have so few negative car interaction. Although this is a dislocating time and been so hard on so many people and continues to be hard, i feel optimistic that were going to take this opportunity and come out with a better Transportation System for San Francisco and a safer one, and one that works for all the modes that people want to use. Very good. Vice chair borden. I want so support what has been said previously. What is evident is we dont have enough open public space as people start to go outside their homes and they are definitely going to look forward to having the space and some people are going to be looking forward to get back to transit. Thinking about how we deal with that. I also think about the question about masks and social distancing and unfortunately we know that this crisis, while it seems short term s probably more long term. It will change the nature of how people ride transit and really thinking about how we get back to where places in asia where people are back on transit and Wearing Masks and theyre adhering to certain other standards. And i think really thinking those things through in the long term will be very much important because these are not temporary concerns. These are more longterm concerns and getting the public comfortable to move forward in that regard with using transit and also providing the space for them to use it. And use our streets and the way they need to move about will be wise for us to plan. Very good. Director rubke. I just agree with everything that everyone else said, so i dont have anything further to add. Thank you. Wonderful. Julie, thank you for all of your work and our collaboration together. Its been an absolute thrill working with you, and i have every confidence cha that the system will run as well as it can when you are in charge. I would say coming out of this, what i would really focus on is optimism. The city will come back. The Transit System will come back. And now is your chance to make it better. Yes, there may be some social distancing protocols for a while. Yes, we may be Wearing Masks for the foreseeable future. But the reality is that the city is still going to have to use transit to move around, to keep its air clean, to keep people safe. It is really now more important than ever. And if there is one thing that sort of will come out of this, look at what our city and our state did in this time. Pretty well. Pretty well and we did it together. So please do use this opportunity to relook at things. Specific projects like the j. Church not going underground which we have talked about. Specific projects like certain flow or car free streets going forward. There is a unique time to look at those things and say just as we tackled this covid problem or in the process of tackling it, the city will tackle the transit issues that face us. Im glad to hear that you and jeff are looking at it that way, and in my final meeting, i would really strongly encourage you to look long term with optimism because i think some of these ideas and plans can really make for a better system. Hear, hear. With that, we will go to item 12. Let me unmute. So item 12 and i would like to call item 12 and 13 together because the presentation yes, we do. The presentation is combined for both of them and you can do Public Comment and the vote separately for each of them. Very good. Jonathan, do you understand was jonathan ready to go . A were all ready to go. Wonderful. And i will be. And item 12, adopting the fiscal year 20212025 Capital Improvement program totalling 2. 5 billion for 188 projects within 10 program, including communication and Information Technology, facility, fleet, parking, security, signals, streets, taxi, transit fixed guideway and transit optimization and expansion. Item 13, this is a long read. Aproving sfmta 2021 and 2022 operating budget in the amount of 1,283. 8 million and 1,336. 9 million respectively and the Capital Budget in the amount of 559. 8 million and 553 million respectively. Certifying that the both budgets are adequate and making substantial progress toward meeting the performance standards established pursuant to charter section 8a. 103 and authorizing changes to various fees, fare, rates, and charges beginning july 1, 2020 and july 1, 2021 to address fees and penal tis. Previously noted including a waiver of taxi fees for fiscal 2021 and 2022, reducing the lowincome boot removal fee creating a new onetime waiver of boot removal for hshapproved individuals experiencing homelessness, establishing reduced tow fees for lowincome individuals with hshapproved individuals and experiencing homelessness, and approving the sfmta title vi fare Equity Analysis for the fare changes. Approving muni railway fare changes, various fare changes, extending discounts of prepaid fare media, fare increases in excess of the automated index plan for all other passes. Increases based on the sfmtas indexing plan for passports, cable cars and authorizing all fare changes to take effect the first day of the next month that is at least 30 days after the fy2021 budget takes effect pursuant or according to the extended deadline for the board of supervisors review as adjusted by an Emergency Declaration of mayor. Acting a z the board of directtors and the Parking Authority commission approving additional increases to various fines, fees, rates and charngs. Amending the transportation Code Division 2 and increase and decrease payment penalties, special collection fees, boot removal fee, transportation code and vehicle code penalties, color curb painting fees, towing and storage fees, Community Service processing fees and various fees. I wont read through all of them. Very good. Sorry. And i think there is a few more things in here. Approving the site l vi analysis of the impact of the proposed fare inchanges on low income and minority communities in San Francisco. Approving a waiver of fees on new years eve and authorizing the director to implement shortterm experimental fares. And concurring with the controller certification that parking citation processing and Collection Services can be performed by private contractors at a lesser cost and to provide the same services to the employees. Authorizing the director to make necessary technical and clerical corrections to the budget. And to allocate additional revenues in order to Fund Additional adjustments to the operating or Capital Budget provided that the director will return to the board of directors for approval of technical or cler kl corrections that in aggregate exceed a 10 change to the operating or Capital Budget respectively. And i am done. Okay. Thank you for reminding me there will be some things about that job that i wont miss. And just for members of the public who are watching this meeting via sfg tv who wish to address the board on either the Capital Improvement program or about the budget to please call the number 8888086926, code 996164. So you are on the line when the chair opens to Public Comment. Very good. Director tomlin or jonathan, we have gone over much of this many times, so i dont think that we have to have a full rehash, but at the same time, if there are things you would like to present to us, please, the floor is yours. Yes. Mr. Chairman, i would like to make some introductory comments and i will apologize because it is going to be long in part because this is some of the most important work that we are asking you to do. As i have said repeatedly, the most powerful statement of any organizations values is its budget. And we began this budget process three months ago during a peak Economic Cycle when we needed to use our values in order to make difficult decisions about how to spend our money to best achieve the public good. Were now three months later in a deep economic crisis and likely at the beginning of a longterm and deep recession. The exact same values that we used thinking about expansion we now use thinking about thoughtful contraction. How do we spend less money while still delivering Critical Service that meet San Franciscos needs and meeting our list of many objectives. So we have engaged with a lot of people. Hundreds and hundred of individuals. We have met with and received comments from. We have engaged in a lot of conversation. And those conversations have significantly changed our approach in the budget. Many of our proposals, in fact, all of our most controversial proposals have been adjusted significantly based upon the feedback that we have received from organizations all over the city, but particularly from organizations representing our most vulnerable populations. We were inspired particularly by the Youth Commission and the Small Business commission. We listened deeply to many members of the south americanbased Community Association who were worried about how increase in fares would impact their community members. And so that is actually one of the place where is i want to start the conversation. Arguably, well, clearly the most controversial aspect of this budget is what were proposing to do with fares. As you well know this week the board of supervisors voted 101 asking us not to raise fares. In the hundreds of comments that we got, the largest the largest topic that we have addressed in those comments was asking us not to raise fares. And yet, in the board of supervisors vote and in 100 of the comments about fares asking us not to raise them, not a single one suggested where we should get additional revenue in order to make up lost revenue from not adjusting our fares, nor did anyone ask us or tell us what we should cut from our budget, from our other programs or from our services in order to accommodate not increasing fares along with our costs. And unfortunately and fortunately, prop e makes that hard tradeoff decision your fundamental responsibility. The sfmta board are the only people in the room who have the responsibility in order to address this critical tradeoff question between Service Versus fares, between cutting revenue and Cutting Services. Theres no easy answer to these questions, and i am grateful for the amount of thoughtfulness that you have put into the tensions in tradeoffs that we have to address in our many previous conversations. I would just like to remind you that we have a policy to increase our fares every single year along with the costs of our delivering services. So that as we increase operator wages because it is essential that we provide our operators with a living wage, we need to increase fares in order to keep up with those expenses. But if we didnt do that because its never popular raising fares, the alternative is Cutting Service and laying off workers. So our current proposal around dealing with fares brings us in a net of 15 million a year. Keeping fares exactly the same would require that we would have to make substantial service cuts and lay off over 100 transit operators. We dont want to do that. We understand, although for many members of the public, if you look in a simplistic linear way at questions of equity, of course we do not want to raise fares for low income passengers who are hurting in this economic crisis. But at the same time, our riders are more dependent upon muni than ever, and there is necessary tradeoff between bringing in revenue from fares and being able to deliver service. So what we did in our work was try and to cut fares for rich people in order to maintain the service weve got. And similarly in order to keep fares flat but cut service for lowincome people also didnt make much sense. We looked at who were the riders using each of our different fare products. And listening to the community we have come up with a proposal that focussing on making sure that were not raising fares for the service for the fare instruments that the most vulnerable populations are most likely to use. I want to be clear to everyone that our 3 cash fare, we are proposing to keep flat in both this coming fiscal year and the following fiscal year. But in order to close our budget gap without having to cut service, what were proposing to do is to focus on reducing a discount that single use clipper card users are given. Right now there is a 50 Cent Discount for using clipper instead of paying cash. Keeping in mind that it is our lowest income and most vulnerable populations that are most likely to use cash and higher incomes more white populations that are most likely to use clipper. Our current approach is not terribly equitable. By reducing the clipper discount, not only are we able to close the budget and maintain service, but were also able to focus the discounts on the people who need it most. So the result is that many people will be paying higher fare, but thats not increase in fare will hit vulnerable population the least and well be able to deliver service, muni service to the people who need it the most. That is why we have strongly recommended to you that of all the options that jonathan will be presenting briefly, what we call the clipper option. And this was an option we created in response to community considerations. So there is a couple of other quick things that i do want to cover. Basically that this budget is already starting to anticipate transportation and specifically transits role in supporting San Franciscos recovery. As i have also told you repeatedly, there is a good reason why the feeding is in the city of San Franciscos flag. We have been through boom and bust cycles before and at in every bottom of the bust cycle, in every time San Francisco has suffered a calamity, it has been transit that has been one of the First Services to come back and it has driven the recovery. And so we are focused our Capital Budget and setting ourselves up for an economic stimulus package knowing that every billion dollars of investment and transit yields about 50,000 new jobs. And knowing as well that if were clever about this, we could use any capital money that is directed at us and operationalize it in order to save our planner, engineer, Maintenance Worker and construction worker jobs both at the sfmta and the department of public works, particularly if we direct our capital money at quick built projects for muni as well as for walking and biking. The budget note that were presenting on the capital side and both on the capital and operating side are trying to strike the right balance between being realistic about the fact that things are not going to be good for the next two years, but also setting ourselves up to ready to receive state and federal stimulus dollars both on the capital and operating side. So we need the budget to accommodate what we hope we will get, but at the same time we need to be ready to spend only what we actually have budgeted. So this budget is going to require very careful management of our expenditures in order to make it work. While at the same time aggressively pursuing every possible avenue of new revenue with one of the things that we keep in mind the most is making sure that we cut every unnecessary expense and save every dime that we can in order to save our workforce. And in particular, pay careful attention to the work force that is most difficult to replace. Here at the sfmta we have a phenomenal array of highly skilled technical people that would be extremely difficult to replace, and this is particularly true in our shops. The machinists who hand Machine Parts for our very specialized skills and the people who slice the cable car cables and there is a long list of skills that we need to make sure we are increasing in this time period even just to hold still particularly as we look at the age of our workforce. We are making sure we are delivering in the budget in addition to preparing for the recovery and making sure we direct the service that comes back at where it is actually needed, not just based upon where our services were six months ago. We are proposing in this budget and one of the things that the reducing the clipper discount brings us is the ability to provide free muni for all youth which is something that we were very much inspired by the Youth Commission in order to deliver. Not just to make it easier for enforcement, but to also make it a lot easier for low income youth who may not have easy access to the particular program that we have got now. So an Important Program and again, we are not raising the cash fare at all, which is quite different from our original proposal. We are supporting the taxi industry by waiving all of their fees and fines for the next two years. We are significantly reducing lowincome tow and boot fees. And also dramaticcally reducing the use of towing and booting as tools given the disproportionate impact on lowincome populations. We are partnering with local merchants to help best manage parking not just during the day but also evenings and weekends in order to support recovery for Small Businesses. We are delivering on some of the Muni Reliability Working Group recommendations and the Service Expansion recommendations, but we are going to be investing in deferred maintenance, particularly for the subway. Making sure we have staffing to operate the central subway and were going to continue to build our h. R. Functions which are going to be necessary whether were expanding or contracting. Were also wanting tom expansion and a couple of key areas including Line Management and other system management and to help us learn from our experiences with switching from schedules to the Headway Management to improvement reliability. We want to expand the Muni Transit Assistance Program in order to help deal with managing homelessness and teenagers on our buses. Were wanting to add more parking patrol officers to manage the streets, particularly given the phenomenal job they have done as the citys most beloved Disaster Service workers the last coup of months. Well be investing in our infrastructure to better maintain a state of degree repash and investing in parts of the systems like our parking bans in order to be able to bring in more revenue. We need to spend money to make money. And of course in our Capital Budget there is a lot of very high return investments in quick build and muni forward. Were still thinking about what well need to do in this budget in order to win people back to transit, and that will shape our communications and quality and reliability investments over the next two years. We definitely need to make sure that San Francisco residents believe in transit, trust it, and feel safe riding it, and that is the duty of the residents to make the most efficient use of our limited street space. We cant take a suburban approach out of the covid problem in order to bring our economy back, we need to design the streets to maximize the movement of people. Were also wanting to support the return of tourism economy that we rely upon for so much the revenue we get from the general fund. And so other things that i just wanted to call attention to that are themes in this budget include our commitment to preserving critical and safe Transportation Services, prepefshing our existing jobs at the agency, but also jobs in Small Businesses, communitybased organizations, tourism, and the arts. Supporting a quick city wide recovery by showing San Franciscos optimism about the future. And continuing to be transparent and continuing to provide updates to you and the public about the reality of our budget situation. [inaudible] and so with that, i would like to turn it over to jonathan, but i do ask for your support in approving our twoyear operating budget and i believe i am turning this over to leo levinson who will give a brief introduction to the presentation. Reserve our comments until after the presentation. A yes, director torrez, that will be the plan and hear the presentation, hear from the public, and open it up for board discussion. Thank you. Yes. Thank you very much. I am leo levinson, the director of finance and Information Technology and chief Financial Officer with sfmta. I want to make a few preliminary remarks before we go through the details. The first thing that i am really proud to work in the agency in the way that we have worked to develop this budget because there is really three things about this i think that is extremely important. It is the focus on values. It is the focus on transparency. We want to be very clear about what were doing and the Public Outreach and listening that are part of this budget. And finally, i want to say a commitment to the focus on what is really happening in the world as we do this. This is one of the most unusual times for budget development. We have unprecedented Economic Situation, and our commitment in this budget allows us to do strategic planning, and it provides a Reference Point for where we hope to be as we go through this downturn and recover. But we are committed to regularly reporting to the board on what is actually happening as we go through this time. So this will be the Reference Point about where we want to be, and we will report on where we are as we go through it. This budget is this budget includes a realistic scenario for an economic downturn looking at the past, but it also preserves our reserve in case the downturn is worse than the budget, and i want to make sure that is clear. And so if the board approve this is budget, our team will be working with the controller and the mayor on actually an interim budget that will go into effect july 1, and for submission of the final budget on the citys new calendar, which will be on august 1. And during that period we may need to make technical adjustments to the budget for balancing purposes as we go through there and to reflect any changes that happen during that period, but we will, of course, be sure to report back as to what those adjustments may be and to the course of the budget period. As jeff has emphasized this, budget reflects the values of this agency and that the board has presented to us. Fundamentally, safety, equity, decarbonization as we move to remove carbon from the system, all within a resilient and financially sustainable system and a work culture that delivers excellent service. And you have heard as we have gone through this budget process and spoken before you and before Numerous Community groups that there are tradeoffs that are necessary as we consider those values. We have tried to make those tradeoffs as transparent and clear as possible to support your decision on this budget. So to move to the next slide please. So i am not going to read through all of this, but the Public Outreach as you know, not just at this board, but to other groups and stakeholders have been very extensive throughout the budget period. Numerous other board meetings in which we have presented and our Citizens Advisory Council and we go to the next slide, many other stakeholder groups. And we have listened during that process and this budget has been informed by it. And there have been changes that you have seen and we have talked about as we have gone through this. And if you two to the next slide, all of the feedback that we have from the public has been collected, analyzed, and posted on our website at sfmta. Com budget, where we also have frequently asked questions that shows our response to the most common categories of comments from the public, so that anyone interested in how their comment was received can actually see their response and the analysis and how we have taken it into account there on our website. And so some of the most important things in our budget that have really changed through this process as a result of what we have heard from you and from the public relates directly in the area of fares as director tumlin has mentioned, as changes to the way we have structured the fare proposal here. In terms of parking hours and the outreach that would take place as we discussed changes in parking meters hours throughout the city. And certainly the towing impact on lowincome individuals was definitely informed by what we heard through this process. The response to the taxi fees in the budget, and in the capitol budget also. And the addition zero focus in the tenderloin and focus on that is what we heard as part of the outreach process. So with that background on the budget, i want to turn it over to jonathan brewers, our senior budget manager. And he will go into more of the details of the programs and choices in this budget before you. Good afternoon, directors. Hopefully you can hear me. And we are now on the slide that says values as policy and programs. So building on what director tumlin and leo just said t critical part about this budget process as we designed it was we were being iterative. As we heard from you and as we heard from the public, we made changes to the presentations that we brought before you. All the way up to what you are seeing today. So next slide please. So i am not going to restate, but we are bringing forward the equity clipper option as the final fare policy, so we can move on to the next slide. That was listening about fares. We will be including in the budget the other options that the board has heard about since the beginning of this process in january including working on a day pass at the fare box, setting fee capping and how that might work with future electronic fare media, looshging at the cable car discount, and including that discount on muni mobile. And e tending bulk sales and eliminating the clipper differential for passport. The value here was ease of use for our customers. We brought forward our fare policy and these were things we got positive feedback on and they are integrated into the final budget proposal. Next slide please. Parking is managed based on demand, so again, i am not going to repeat the hourser to change, but the policy proposal is to extend and into the evenings beginning in fiscal 2021. Next slide please. Also, this was late in the game, and again, taking note of the Economic Situation with regard to covid19, we are now recommending and it is integrated into the final budget that we do waive all taxi fees in fiscal year 2021 and 2022. Next slide. Again t low income tow program and those two new and for zero boot fee for those experiencing homelessness. We had a hearing on this, and again t feedback we received in the meeting resulted in a change in the final proposal. Next slide please. And then the elements of the budget we have built in for the period of time where we expect there to be restoration of Transportation Services in San Francisco. So key to the budget is having built into the budget the ability to implement the policies and programs that we feel will support the agency coming back and coming back stronger than it was prior to covid19 emergency. Next slide please. With vision zero and the specific Capital Projects that the director mentioned including funding the Quick Build Program for the first time on the muni and transit side. Edition, we have since taken the data that we have and integrated that into the final budget that you will see is lower than prior it racingses you have seen in the iterations we have seen in the past. We have increased the funding through hr78 which is the cares act. Next slide please. At the prior meeting we had noted what we expect to see in the form of a revenue loss. So let me start with the current period and the economic shock and closing the current year balance. So when this emergency started, we immediately saw reductions in parking and fare revenue. We expected a reduction in the general fund and so we did an estimate of what we thought between essentially mid march to the end of the fiscal year and how much we might lose. Conservatively we were at 195 million. Last week we did a revise base and more data and we were about 209 million. Now we expect that the agency will lose between when the Public Health emergency began and the end of the fiscal year approximately 211 million. So we were pretty good about the range. The longer the period, the more revenues, of course, we will lose because there is zero or very little Economic Activity that were seeing within the system. And this comes to the next two fiscal years, and as i noted at the last meeting, we did look at a number of downturn scenarios. To remind our board and the public and the employees, we have always planned for an economic downturn and that was prior to leo and i, but we discussed this at the january board workshop. We showed you a recession scenario in which we anticipated if a recession were to hit similar to the one we saw in 2009, a revenue loss of about 158 million. Quick look on what we thought would happen in fiscal year 2021 and 22, you will see the ranges. The maximum loss over two fiscal years and again, this isnt zero like we are seeing now with the economic shock. It is a slow down of Economic Activity meaning the revenues at the agency might receive. So on the high end, that was roughly in the 210 to 220 million. We can go to next slide. The cares act will supplement some of the loss were expecting and we have plugged that into the budget between fiscal year 2021 and 2022. The objective is to be to be, one, conservative, and bringing forward and 25 billion in that ask and the bay area is expecting to receive 1. 3 billion. The metropolitan Transportation Commission will take action on that tomorrow, and with luck and out in the press, the m. T. A. Is expected to see about 197 million in the first crunch. There is no local map required with that and the tiff requirement has been waived. So what i want to show you and i will tell you we spent lots o f time talking about hoe to show this to you, but on this supplied, Pay Attention slide 21 to the yellow portions of the bar. That is the operating grant amount. I am going to go slow. On the very left, fiscal year 2021 as we thought the last time as we showed it to you and fiscal year 2021 now. In the yellow bar you are seeing a tig cant revenue that is the cares grant. That is what we expect the federal government to close with regard to our revenue loss. You will see the other areas, the general fund being the dark blue going down. You will see parking revenues going down. Maybe not as much. You will see transit fare revenue going down. You will see a lot of the other traditional Revenue Sources going down, and i will cover how much we think thats going to be, but to balance the budget, we have plugged in a certain expectation of what we will get in federal grants in future traunches. And you will see we still needed that revenue to plug our holes and generally get as close as we could to a balanced budget. So the stressor and the headline here is without the support of the federal government, we would be in a much worse situation than we are proposing to you right now. So i wanted to clearly show you how those dollars are being plugged in over the next two fiscal years. Next slide please. So here is the basic numbers. Within that range that i showed you between the 100 and essential 220 million revenue loss, for the purposes of the budget, we have to come up with a number, and so our expectation of revenue loss in the two fiscal years is roughly 173. 6 million. And so the total revenue loss you will see is 13 between the two years. We expect a revenue drop of 10 in fiscal year 2021 alone. And that is significant. That is a significant revenue loss. That would have had Significant Impact on the operations of the agency. We planned for a certain level of recovery. However, the economic model we plugged into the budget assumes that a downturn will continue through calendar year 2021. So we dont expect anything close to normal normal happening until calendar year 2022 at the earliest. We stretched out the period by which we think there will be a downturn that stretches into fiscal year 2022. The reason we did that is the m. T. A. Board will be considering the next twoyear budget in that period of time. We would have given you a lot of data and made a lot of decisions but we essentially spread the pain out being very conservative in when we thought the economy would fully come back. The bottom three boxes show you the impact of the cares grant. So with the revenues in 2021 and 2022, there is still a reduction and the budget will be reduced from what we have shown you on march 17 and at the april 7 board meeting. I did promise at the last meeting the final budget would be less than what you had originally been shown. Its down by 1. 2 in fiscal year 2021 and just about half percent,. 4 , so we have to reduce by 21. 5 million in revenue. That is revenue. We have to cut back on 21. 5 million of stuff. In addition, we have brought up and we told the board in the past that there are triggers in retirement contributions and i know director torrez asked at the last meeting about were we covering the cost of benefits. The answer is yes. The Fringe Benefits are all paid for. And the additional pension contributions that would be required because city revenues are left is also included through 2022. So that trigger will occur in fiscal year 202. And the agency will have to increase the retirement contribution by 22. 3 million and which makes it approximately a 45 million problem that we were solving for to bring you a final proposed budget. Next slide please. So this is essentially the results we were solving and we have solved for many problems iteratively and step by step, and for 16 million and 6 million problem with regard to expenses within the budget. That is where we ended up. That is where we see the cares funding works. It is where we see the economy going. And again, we tried to be as prudent and conservative, so on that 173 million, we went with the middle bad scenario. The middle bad has been plugged into the budget with regard to revenue. Next slide please. We do have Capital Projects and contingency costs we need to cover and the operating budget is recommended to be reserved for fiscal year 22. As director tumlin noted, we need to replace our parking meters and again, on the transit Capital Projects, this was part of our objectives to and the value to have Ongoing Services paid for by ongoing revenues and onetime sources paying for onetime needs so we will switch over the proposition set aside that we had been using for capital and we can backfill those projects with onetime fund balance. And then, of course, we want to continue improvements at our facilities to make sure our employees have good conditions to work. Next slide, please. Here is the map of what we put in and i wont go through this all, but we assumed 173 million revenue loss and we did make labor changes and costs, so the colas planned and the labor agreements delayed and we accounted for that reduction in those labor costs and we shifted some of the new positions, potential start dates by a quarter which got us over a Million Dollars of savings. We did include the additional expense of increased retirement contributions in the fiscal yead balance for the operating budget for fiscal year 22 and then changes around classifications and those save savings were basd into the budget. On slide 30, this is to give you a net difference between what you saw on april 7th and youll see we did reduce salary costs in the two fiscal years is benefits did go up and that, again, i wanted to make sure to address director torezs question and to fully cover the costs is youll see retirement costs in fiscal year 22, 22. 6 billion. The overhead has to do with accounting for a grant and it is the grant you approved today, so were counting that as revenue to cover some operating costs and we were able to reduce Debt Service Costs and we are working with the department we spent a lot of time scrubbing through work orders to try to reduce overall costs to, again, balance the budget and get to reduction numbers that we needed. Next slide, please. I do want to make it very clear that the fiscal controls that we have put in place in this fiscal year will continue into fiscal year 21 and that includes unimproved or unscheduled overtime and there will be quarterly are review and a timing sequence on hiring and so as director tumlin noted, well will step up hr and well have the opportunity to do a hiring plan and schedule out testing and civil lists that dont cost salaries but set us up again to hire up the technical trades that have been difficult for us to fill at the time we have been able to fill them and we will focus on Service Critical positions. We are reviewing all purchases of nonservice Critical Services, special professional services, work orders and supply costs and it will be a period of austerity and we will be monitoring all expenses and the use of regimes and procedures have been put in place and we will monitor expense as much as we are monitoring revenues and provide the board with regular updates on the Fiscal Health of the agency. Next slide, please. This particular slide, in addition, as director tumlin noted, we are plugging in all of the potential programs, essentially the new things we agreed to put in the budget. However, again, if the Economic Situation does not prove out as we have projected it, we can eventually stop or choose not to turn on a series of things. So we do have an additional 22. 7 million in expenditure control and so any delay in the authorization of filling these positions or paying the salaries, just a reminder that this is essentially a two Million Dollars revenue loss and well be starting that later in the fiscal year and so how that works out, but technically, its something that could be controlled based on the approval of the board or the board looking at that particular program. We did want to include it on the list, but we still have the full intention of implementing it after your approval. But that is another 22. 7 million in savings that we could realize that was extra stuff, but again, the extra stuff we may not choose to turn on if revenues do not come in as we expect. Next slide. That gets me to the budget of 1. 28 billion, 1. 34 billion on the operating side of the ledger and we do anticipate that through the fiscal controls, we probably can realize a minimum of another 10 million in savings and again, very conservative, having additional insurance policy and this does include 23 million in extent tourexpenditures if revenues dot come in as projected. We will still have after that, a 10 reserve appropriatated by the board of supervisors to be used if we have a severe revenue shortfall. Next slide, please. This is the final result. Remember, one of our key objectives was to create the sustainability in the budget and reduce structural deficit. As i noted, the structural deficit does remain, but again, shifting revenues, ongoing revenues to ongoing committed services and reducing costs, working towards more efficiency, we have flattened the curve to some extent, at least on the fiscal side of the house. So hopefully, we will review the Fiscal Health of the agency and hopefully, we wont continue this trend. Were to secure additional revenues and additional sources for the agency to deliver the services we would like it to deliver. Next slide, please. Just just quickly to the Capital Improvement program. So as ro roberta noted, we would ask you to approve both today. Just really quickly, ive gone over the need, 21. 9 billion to 30 billion and dont want to cover that again. Next slide. So here is the final program. What i really would like to do is give a shoutout to the bicycle coalition, to walk San Francisco and to the transit riders who spent time with us to go through the Capital Improvement program and really give us ideas and recommendations, many of which we were able to implement change timing on projects. So those were integrated into the final cip and i really do want to commend them for being so engaging with us as we develop the final fiveyear Capital Improvement program. Next slide, please. These are the programs that you know that we split it up and its not by division. Next slide, please. Here are the sources we have in and let me add this, that in the next fiscal year, we will begin the work on the second general Obligation Bond. We will begin our bond planning. The election is still planned for june of 2022 and we do anticipate using about half of that bond for facilities. We do need to make a plan for the use of the entire 500 million which is not included in the fiveyear cip. Too early to fully name projects and point to sources. But we will start that work this the fall and we do need to be done around september of next year in order for them the board to take action, the city of Capital Planning committee and the board of supervisors, usually the deadline would be february of 2022 to get that on the ballot and we will engage the board on that work in the coming year. Were actually wor working withe Transportation Authority on sales tax and we have not used a revenue bond in this budget. I know dr. Heineke, you have been interested in our bond rating. The rate agencies have been calling this. Leo can speak to this after. I dont think weve heard anything that should make us concerned be yet. But the state of the economy will impact where we end up in the next couple of years. Next slide. So this is where the final cip ended up, 2. 45 billion, a little more than you thought at the last meeting. I think we were on 150s on the project and we got it up to 188, total funded projects in the Capital Improvement program. Again, the agency only includes the project in the fiveyear cip if we are able to fund 90 of the work. We do not want to make a commitment on behalf of the organization that we will deliver a project. Iif we do nothave the financialo do so. Again, we program 50 plus forces in the fiveyear cip and i know a certain director likes to eat his peas, so we included our state of repair investment over the fiveyear cip. Again, it is the value of the agency to maintain the infrastructure in a state of good repair and the minimum we tried to invest is 255 million a year and we got it up to 268 over the twoyear period. Next slide, please. Youll see where we ended up, and we did include the good repair investment, yearoveryear. You will approve the Capital Budget today, which is the first two years of the fiveyear Capital Improvement. Next slide, please. We did want to show you the changes in the fiveyear cip. The technical adjustments since april 7th and youll see, we did include some geo bond funding in facilities that largely have do with the bart canopy project on market street. We do want to include all projects that we are funding with the general Obligation Bond and that has been added. In addition, were moving forward. The mt board has improved or i believe youve approved our nexf the general Obligation Bond and i think i presented a month ago. We took the opportunity to add them into this Capital Improvement program and include that revenue and that included the bumpup and associated projects and we got up to 2. 5 billion ho. Youll see fiveyear cip is 7. 7 billion and we would like 7. 7 billion but we have 2. 5 billion. So thats about 33 of the needs that we were able to cover and we do track that by Capital Improvement program and this datdata is important to allow tt bond planning and do the advocacy, to show people, really, where their dollars will be invested and where they will see the benefit and where the agency just does not have the Financial Capacity to fund. That was the final slide. What i would like to close with is nobody has thanked the board. This was i mean, when you have a designer as your senior budget manager, he likes to do things differently and that was me. And i was hoping, and my team, we would make this an ir iterate process, engaging the public in the budget. We had clear views identified. It was a sustainable budget, meaning we could afford the things we would propose. We werent going to surprise people and a resilient one. In a time of uncertainty and change, that the agency would still be able to follow through on its commitment. In spite of the covid19 emergency and the future, w i think we have built the most resilient budget we can. I would like to thank you for all of your time and the feedback was amazing, so thank you. Thank you, and unless leo and director tumlin have anything else, i think it would be appropriate to see if we have Public Comments on items 12 or 13. I became public in last hour that San Francisco was awarded 41. 6 million tircp grant for the muni program and this is good news for this specific Grant Program because it allows us to take state capital money and not own invest in the liability improvements, but to direct most of that capital money to our own planners, engineers, designers, construction workers, trades people and supporting the department of public works in order to hold on to jobs in this recession. Wonderful. Thank you for that news. Miss boomer, Public Comment, please. So mr. Chairman, this would be Public Comment on the Capital Improvement program and so take Public Comment and deal with that item and move to Public Comment on the budget and deal with that item. Very good. So item 12, please. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, for members of the public watching the meeting via tv should wish to address the board dial into 888809629. Operator your question is now in question and ann mode. You have three questions remaining. Im the executive director of walk San Francisco. Thank you so much, director, for your years of service. I havent had a chance to thank you today. What youve done for sfmta and prioritizing transit and especially for leading the conversation, we cant thank you enough. Quickly, thank you, jonathan, for your budget presentation and the sfmta team that put this together. Its been a long haul. I appreciate this opportunity to comment on the Capital Improvement budget and sfmtas main focus on safety for pedestrians and while the agency does manage major financial constraints. And i want to thank you for keeping the Pedestrian Safety as a priority and to continue investing in the quickfill program. I want to say that the tenderloin is a neighborhood that is in immediate attention and meets the demand for safetye streets. This should be prioritized and focused and even as the director tumlin said today, the neighbor neighborhood has the most children and seniors and yet the most dangerous streets. We need to try things and change if we need it. So as funding becomes available, the tenderloin streets are sfmtas top priority. 30 seconds. Funding is pending and these programs are required to get us to vision zero and so if theres any way to keep the momentum going and keep funding certain ones, that would be fantastic. Thank you, and i appreciate this time to comment. Have a great afternoon. Thank you, next caller, please. Operator you have three questions remaining. The next caller, please state your name and well start your time when you begin talking. Hi. I just wanted to say that thank you, jonathan and thank you for all of the mta staff who have worked on this. I really support the capital plan and i hope you approve it. The projects there, i hope, will improve muni service, like the embarcadarro pocket trac track d the new 30foot buses that often break down and provide Unreliable Service on the Community Lines which have some of the highest headway in the system and i really hope this Investment Plan can help strengthen muni. I appreciate all of your work. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have four questions remaining. Next speaker. This is for talking about the Capital Improvement project only. So please state your name and your two minutes will start. Question hi. Im wit a San Francisco resident with the collaborative and Pedestrian Task force. Im calling to support the sfht as treating this mormtaas more. The necessary nature of the increase reflects years of underinvestments which we see played out tragically in the unacceptable number of avoidable deaths on the neighborhood streets. If theyre truly serious about this, they must think about the tenderloins and i ba want to emphasize this is just the beginning of what must be years of meaningful communitydriven changes to the neighborhood streets. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker, please. Operator you have three questions remaining. Please state your name and well start the clock. Question heiim herbert wir and im mr. Winer, this is about the Capital Improvement project, not about the budget. Were on the Capital Improvements. Do you haveny comments on the Capital Improvement project . No, not at this time. Thank you. Nexnext speaker, please. Good afternoon, please give us your name and well start your two minutes. Question im Curtis Bradford im part of the tenderloin safety task force. I want to say thank you for your increased attention to the tenderloin neighborhood and the Capital Improvement plan and we really appreciate the recognition of the urgency and the need for unique attention that the tenderloin requires. It addresses years, even decades of being neglected and marginalized as a community and as a neighborhood and as a matter of equity, trying to rebuild our community and we have a great amount of need and i applaud you for taking this bold step forward, but i agree with some of the earlier speakers that i would ask that you keep in mind that this is just the beginning of what needs to be many years of bold and aggressive support for the tenderloin neighborhood to make up for those years of neglect. Its the only way, i believe, that well get anywhere near our vision zero plan for San Francisco. Its going to be take years of bold investment to really correct those 30 seconds. Years of neglect, so thank you. So thank you for your support and i look forward to working further with you in the future. Thank you, next speaker. Operator you have two questions remaining. Speaker, please give us your name and well start your two minutes. This is for Public Comment on the Capital Improvement project. Question , hithis is eric w eric roselle and i want to say thank you for all of the hard work that the board has done in keeping us up to date with the Capital Improvement budget. Thank you. Operator you have one question remaining. Please give us your name and well start your two minutes. Question again, im will the philippino community sense and im a resident of district 9, born and raised in San Francisco and i wanted to thank the board for their continuous work despite this new condition, this very uncertain condition, under covid19. I am, however, really concerned that the sfmta right now is considering raising the fares again on transit riders. Katrina, hold on. This is a topic were talking about the Capital Improvement budget, not about the operating budget and not about the fares and signs. So that will be the next Public Comment. Anything you would like to say about the Capital Improvement budget . Not at this moment. Thank you. Operator you have zero questions remaining. Very good. So if our moderator would confirm theres no one left who wishes to speak on item 12. Operator you have one question remaining. Speaker, please give us your name and number and your time will start when you begin speaking. And this is not for the budget. This is only for the Capital Improvement program. Question thank you, chair. Im going to talk about the Capital Budget here. Theres a lot here. Its a big document and there are some things i like in it. I think its very important that we be focused on the basics. Because really, all i want at the end of the day is the bus system is subway that works. I do support the purchasing of the electric buses in the pilot and converting our fleet over in the future. I think its really important that we work on our signal system in the subway because i have been on the subway and the signal system would cut out, sitting in the tunnel. Certainly, to work on our turnarounds, in the subway, as the subway is very, very important to me, and i think we have to have an eye towards accessibility. There are still places on the outlying light rail lines out in the sunset where there arent Wheelchair Accessible places for passengers to board and so i think there really has to be something done about that, because that can be a hilly area and we want to be more inclusive. So i think overall, we have a good program. But we have to prioritize the basics first as far as simply making things work and ensuring that everybody is included. 30 seconds. Thank you very much. Nice to hear your voice. If our moderator can confirm that theres no one else in the cue, that would be wonderful. Operator you have zero questions remaining. Thank you, mr. Chair. If you would like to close Public Comment at this time. Ill close Public Comment on item number 12, miss boomer. Would it be appropriate, i think let me ask this. So i do have director comments on item 12 and well take those now. Director rubki, on the Capital Budget, please. This will be quick. I wanted to express support for the Capital Budget, in general. I has wonderful projects, as many of the commenters noted and i just wanted to highlight that it does include both in the l project as well as other places, funding for accessible stocks on the light rail on the west side of town. So i appreciate that inclusion n and i wanted to address that ad. Vice chair borden. The 20 million you mentioned that we just got, is that for capital or was that for operating . Go ahead. That was a 40 million capital grant, but because its for muniforward quick bills, we can use that money and operationallize it on our own staff. Our staff will be doing the design and construction of that work. We can spend our capital money to save jobs within the agency. Great and is that a part of any of the numbers you showed us or that we were anticipating . The tircp grant, we do include those in the fiveyear cip. We do an estimate based on prior awards and this is better than our pessimistic guess, so its probably a little more revenue than we anticipated in the cip. So well see more money in there, but the tircp grant itself is included and funds the projects that director tumlin noted. Thank you. I see no further requests to comment on item 12 and if there are no further, miss boomer, my inclination is to entertain a motion now and move to Public Comment on item 13. Senator torez, the floor is yours. Thank you. And thank you, jonathan, for your good work. Number two, thank you for references the Fringe Benefits and im happy to report from california that it looks like our insurance premiums wont go up to 40 under this pandemic but maybe up to 20 increases and well see what happens at the end of the day. When you said you relied on general obligation funding, are you taking into account the debt service decreased because of Interest Rates decreasing . It shows to refin refund thet from the federal government that would save 20 million. Within the general bond for the program, i do know and for our projects that are always looking to get the best rates, and they will look to refinance, to realize more general fun dollars. Were doing that at a stemcell agency because they did not project a decrease. And who could of during that period of time and more so. So now we have it in front of us and whether that debt service has been reduced and what reduction we can use. And thats a very good idea and i think its part of our fiscal control next year. We can definitely take a look at the Debt Service Payment and see if there are any opportunities to refinance the current bond, to try to keep the money back in the agency. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I waspie would would entertain o approve. Approve. Miss boomer, please call the role. role call . Mr. Chair, you have unanimous approval. Lets go to item 13. And call Public Comment. For people watching this by sfg tv, who wish to address the board, please dial the number 888 8086929 and i. D. 6924. Operator youre now in answer and question mode. When its your turn to speak, it will prompt you and mr. Moderator when youre ready. Operator you have eight questions remaining. First speaker, please. inaudible . Next speaker. Question im a student organizer at city college of San Francisco and i am against any of the fare increases because as we have a number of individuals who have lost their jobs and have filed for unemployment and the bus system is for essential workers going to work, as well as frontline workers and for those who are getting essential goods like groceries and medications, these people are my neighbors are heavily taxed already and are not able to pay rent or cannot pay for their medications, so people are making decisions on what things that they can afford and and Public Transportation should be accessible to all. Im wondering why has never anyone brought up the fact of, you know, uber is their ride shares are decreasing and uber eats, number of rights have been increasing and those are not essential activities. Why cant we tax corporations that operate very unsafely on the roads. Ive seen many pedestrians get hit by lyfts or uber and delivery drivers that are doubleparked in dangerous situations. Why cant we have corporations to get taxed to help with the Public Infrastructure to reduce our Carbon Footprint and allow more people to ride Public Transportation . Our citizens cant be even more stressed out and more taxed in this unprecedented time, because so many people dont even know about these fare increases happening. The Impact Report says there was no impacts on lowincome and minority groups, but that happened before covid19. Im sorry, time. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. You have ten questions remaining. Next speaker, please give us your name and your time will start. Question hello. Im the lead staff person for the Housing Community for the Youth Commission. Im also a district 4 resident and i want to thank you for the thorough budget presentation and the intense work to craft an equitable budget under a pandemic. I know the Youth Commission urged you not to increase if fares. I can see youre vested in the community and i can see the intention behind it and trying to decrease the impacts on the most mor marginalized people. A lot of the young people are students and a lot of schools, aside from sf state dont provide free Public Transit and i would encourage you all to extend that 24yearolds. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. You have ten questions remaining. Question im in district 6 and im here to share my concern that the sfmta is raising fares again on transit riders like myself, especially during these times in covid19 where many people are wondering how will they be buy necessities and pay rents, utilities and keep their Small Businesses. We dont know how this will impact residents in the upcoming months with this Public Health crisis. The last thing we need is that the fare increases. We ask to take into consideration the impact that came from yet another year of increased fares. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Operator you have 11 questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Please give us your name and well start your two minutes when you begin talking. Question im also a City College Student and i wanted to thank sfmta for all of the incredible work theyve done so far. Its amazing to hear all of the efforts taking place in regards to the fare increases, i myself along with students from a Student Group are asking for the facebooks nofares to not be inc. Were all feeling this. Also, the fare increase is not affordable when were unable to pay. Its t inaudible . Thank you. Next speaker, please. We just ask people who are on the line to please, if you are watching via sfg tv to please turn the volume down so we dont get reverberation. Next speaker, well start your time. Operator you have ten questions remaining. Thank you, well start your time when you begin talking. Question hi. Im an organizer for Community Housing partnerships. We are Supportive Housing providers, operating mostly in the tenderloin for formerly homeless residents and im also a district 9 resident. I want to thank the sfmta boards for instituting the changes around serving the hopeless population and youth, but a concern that we have still about the budget is whats been said before, which is around increasing the monthly passes, which are still going to be pu put are still putting people in the cycle due to not being able to afford the fares and increasing the likelihood of something we cant afford. And also, there was a lot of argument that was taking down that we could get to a free muni system because it would serve rich people who cant afford it, but that is the same argument we hear over and over again against any universal program that because it does actually serve, like the whole population 30 seconds. That the benefits of helping people who are struggling the most dont matter at that point. So we strongly urge that we continue this fight for making a universally free Transportation System. Its happening in other places like kansas city so it is a possible outcome and so thank you. Thank you very much for though comments. Next speaker, please. You have ten questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Mr. Moderator . Call with phone numbing ending in 8962, please unmute our microphone. Ok, so we have no response. Lets move to the next speaker. Operator you have nine questions remaining. Next speaker. Question we have been demanding a nopay increase on all options. We gave over 1400 postcards of people stating they cant afford another pay increase. We also submitted yesterday a statement yesterday where our community is struggling to stay in the community. This will be a big burden for people trying to get back on their feet. Sfmta needs to hear the options. Every time we bring up nopay increase on all payment options, sfmta replies with it will affect reliability. And i havent seen any reliability or a Better Service ever since i started riding muni when it was 35cents. If we want to be a transit first city and if muni wants to win people back, it needs to be affordable. Again, i urge you to vote no fare increase on all payment options. Thank you. Thank you, next speaker. Operator you have nine questions remaining. Give us your name and well start the timer when you begin talking. Question hi. This is barry toronto. Thank you for your service, chairman. And i wish you luck in the future. I want to thank all barry, if you could turn down the volume on sfg tv. Its not on. Question i want to thank jeff tumlin for making sure that taxis fees are waived for the next two fiscal years and i hope you will support that. Also, i wanted to see if it was something in todays agenda item about waiving the paycard fees for the rest of this fiscal year. I didnt see anything on there of that, maybe i missed it. But im hoping that will be included because right now, theres hardly any drivers out there. I drive about once a week and for safety reasons and i want to thank sfmta for the cleaning supplies to help us get through the shift. You would like yo to consider ug a clipper card as a way of paying taxi fares and to possibly help encourage taxi use by finding money for marketing that ta taxis are right now safr or continue to be safer in the future. Plus, we also have access to the transit lines and we have special leftturn privileges like buses. So i appreciate 30 seconds. What youve done so far and hope that we can continue in the future and see if we could waive the fee for the rest fiscal year. Thank you very much. Thank you for your nice words. Next speaker, please. Operator you have eight questions remaining. Please state your name and we will start the time when you begin talking. Question thank you. Ive been reading this and i wrote you a letter about it. We call this Clipper Equity, but i fail to see how it helps the clipper program or advances equity, because im a clipper user and i use it because i am a person of modest means and it saves me money. And yet, were not encouraging people through this fare increase to use clipper. And so, where pricing the lifeline and the reduced fare passes differently, but there are many people who would qualify for life line but they cant because they dont live in San Francisco. So a typical day for me involves riding on three different Transportation Systems and so, muni is not just about San Francisco, but its a system of regional significance and the clipper program has to make certain benchmarks and transactions to avoid certain fees and if we want to help people, i think our energy should be spent on helping people to get on to clipper and save some money and have the incentives to do so. Because im wondering if we really looked at the globalling cost of cash and electronic fare collections of which, are we losing efficiencies by still collecting a lot of cash fares . Our goal should be to reduce cash. 30 seconds. Question so we should tap their tappings. Two levels of fare capping, both fafare and reduced facebook. Fare. We need a simplified fare schedule. I appreciate it. Thank you very much and chair, i wish you well. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Operator you have seven questions remaining. Speaker, please give us your name and well start your time when you begin talking. Question im from the mtacac. I appreciate mr. Tumlins emphasis as we look at the hard choices presented in the budget. As we look for badly needed revenue, i wonder, could we dramatically increase parking rates . Could we expand metering in residential neighborhoods and keep meters on until 2 00 a. M. On friday and saturday . Could we raise annual parking permits to the extent that state law allows . Could this board officially endorse congestion pricing and perhaps, with tiers, depending on levels of congestion as well as any state legislation we would need to make that happen . Finally, could we follow the example of hong kongs Mass Transit Railway corporation in developing housing on our own real estate and using that revenue to Fund Operations . Thanks. Thank you very much and next speaker, please. Operator you have six questions remaining. Speaker, please give us your name and ill start your time. Question hi. Im here today as part of the Transit Justice Coalition and im a San Francisco native. I grew up in the tenderloin and im taking mumi my entire life. I take the bus because its one of the only options to commute. I never really wanted to own a car in San Francisco. But im concerned that sfmca is considered raising the facebooke because so many people in my life are workingclass people are so reliant on muni to get to is from work. Monthly passes would range between 325 to 400 and on top of that, we pay 2300 for rent and 2500 for groceries and many dont have 400 to spare, especially right now. Many low income people are being laid off and many are lowincome people and if you really want to do right by lowincome people, last thing we need are facebook increases. Fares. I think its irresponsible to say it needs to keep hiring muni officers. I would like for there to be no increase continuing to pay and sustain service. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Operator you have six questions remaining. Next speaker. Question im a student at the university of San Francisco. I want to thank you for your integration of Public Feedback into your new budget proposal. I wanted to highlight something. The Clipper Equity plan uses data on cli clipper and monthlys usage and your certificates show 30 of clipper users and monthly pass users are low income. Sfmtas current level of low income varies drastically compared to the other requirements established. Whove data amongst lowincome riders who make above the sfmtas low income requirements raising monthly passes will impact riders and this new equity proposal is much less equitable than it appears so we urge the board of directors to stand in solidarity with the Transit Justice Coalition that 27 organizations have signed on to and make the decision not to raise fares in my capacity. Thank you. Thank you very much. Networks speaker, please. Operator you have five questions remaining. Next speaker, well start your time when you begin talking. Question good afternoon, directors. I take the bus for work everyday and i am very concerned that the sfmta is considering raising the fares again on transit riders like me because our communities are hurting economically, especiall. This impacts lowincoe residents like me and the last thing we need is a fare hike. This must be affordable. We ask you to take into considerations the daily impact that will stem from yet another year of increased fares thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Operator you have four questions remaining. inaudible . Operator you have three questions remaining. Please give us your name and well start your time when you begin speaking. Question i wish to protest the increase in the bus fares. Reality is that services are going to be decreased by mta, even if the price of the bus fare is increased and frankly, you should not be increasing the fares because the service is atrocious. Its not fair to do it on the backs of passengers. If you really want to get increased revenue, have a decent transportation service. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Winer and thank you for your patience in moving to this item from the last item. Its appreciated. Be well, sir. Next speaker, please. Operator you have two questions remaining. Before the next speaker starts, if there are other people now watching via tv who wish to address the board on the operating and Capital Budget, please call 888 8086929 and then 99961164 and finally 10, so you can be in the cue before we reach the end of the Public Comment. Thank you. Next speaker. Question good afternoon, directors. I live in philma. Im a rider of Public Transit, i dont have a car. I know that Public Transit is a huge challenge, especially now, and i deeply appreciate all of your creativity is hard work in the service of the public. There has to and way to put this burden of funding elsewhere on our most vulnerable. I think if there is nowhere else to look for the money, then maybe riders who have money could be obligated to purchase a more expensive clipper or do so voluntarily. What i feel is that Public Transit is a human right and that going forward, we need to be looking ways to make it guaranteed for all. This pandemic, of course, made it clear that many of the financially vulnerable workingclass riders are all essential workers and for now, please put the most vulnerable riders first and no fare increase, at least for them on any payment option. Thank you. Thank you. So next speaker, please. Operator you have two questions remaining. Give us your name and well start your time when you begin speaking. Question im a member of post united save the mission, which is a coalition of equity organizes and individual stakeholders here in the Mission District as well as Transit Justice Coalition and im speaking to urge the mta to refrain from any muni fare increases for fiscal year 21 and 22. We dont know how this pandemic will impact residents lives in the years to come. But we do know that this pandemic is placing the greatest hardship on residents who rely on Public Transit. The last thing we need right now are fare increases that will serve only to exacerbate their burdens. Halting fare increases would mean losing drivers, i dont agree with this. I believe this to be a false narrative and that these two priorities are not exclusive of each other and it was mentioned earlier that no one had come forward with any solutions, but i doubt very much that the mta has bothered to ask for solutions beforehand. I believe in the mta were to come together, we could work to develop solutions, to make sure that we could both maintain the stability of the system while also making sure that it is affordable to the folks who most rely on it. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Operator you have one question remaining. Unless anyone else dials into the phone number, then this will be the last speaker. Please give us your name and well start your time. Question hi, thanks for having me again. Im katrina lee and i was born and raised in San Francisco in district 9, still living in the house i was raised in and i am a staff member at the philippino community. I remember hearing a comment about having to pay 35cents and i grew up using muni, i have a drivers license and do not have enough money to buy my own car. Im here to reiterate support for the campaign to stop the fare increases on all payment options. So the philippino Community Center and other organizations based were compelled to support this at all because we have so Many Community members, specifically those in the extremely, extremely lowincome brackets. During this covid19 crisis, i just wanted to ask a question of how fare increases in general, let alone for clipper and monthly pass is encouraging ridership. And its not. Its not encouraging ridership at all. We should be moving towards that direct. We have Many Community members that are scared already and many are essential workers and documented caregivers, facing harsh working conditions, low wages and our unemployed workers are very disappointed to find their weekly benefits are barely amounting to 400 a month. 30 seconds. So singleincome households are worried about paying rent and utilities and even our small efforts to give them food for free, its not enough to shoulder their anxiety. So throughout the budget proposal, the lowincome ridership is very loosely used as a term. We really need you to prioritize the needs of lowincome riders, lowincome workers with this growing sentiment. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any further Public Comments . Operator you have two questions remaining. Next speaker, please. Question im an organizer at the market. At this time of crisis, no essential services should be raising prices. In fact, the opposite should be true. I. inaudible . Question this will be a disgrace and we should be moved forward in the interests of the essential transportation. Thank you. Thank you. Operator we have one more speaker. You have zero questions remaining. Mr. Chair, unless no one dials 10 at this point mr. Moderator, will you confirm when we have exhausted our speakers and well close Public Comment. Operator you have one question remaining. Question good afternoon. Im angelica and this phone is really hard to be on the phone for four and a half hours, trying to do a publicspeaking on one of the most important budgets for all of us transit riders affected by the increase for the next two years. 27 organizations have submitted a letter stating that we are against the fare increase. This is not the time to increase the fares when we are all struggling. Were all trying to figure out how were going to basically pay for the essential things we need to pay for during the pandemic. Even before the pandemic, though, we submitted over 1400 postcards, petitions, Read Community testimonies and while we appreciate the sfm has efforts if proposing to no longer increase the cash fare, the plan of continuing to increase the clipper, muni mobile and monthly passness thee working class is unequitable and unacceptable. We ask you to take into consideration the daily impact that will stem from yet another year and vote no on fare increase. 30 seconds. Question also on your budget what, theres a lot of s low income and we would like to know your terms of low income. Were struggling and were still pinned as rich riders when were not and we would like to know, what does rich riders mean and working class mean to the mta staff. Thank you. Operator you are zero questions remaining. Very good, mr. Moderator, if you could confirm that weve exhausted our speakers, we can close Public Comment. Moderator confirms that Public Comment is now closed. Very good. So well close Public Comment on item 13. Director torez . Mr. Torez, if you could unmute your microphone. Thank you, roberta. I just wanted to thank the staff for all of the hard work theyve done and i think its e emblemac of what they have achieved because they have convinced he to support this. After a couple of mornings, it was clear to me they had been working so hard to find out what is the best compromise to deal with these fare increase issues. I think they did that by that chart they showed earlier of all of the people you spoke to to get that input including members of the board of directors to try to figure out what that means. So i think the last ladys comments need to be answered because i think she might have a better idea of how equitable this compromise is, number one. Number two, the other issue which i raised during debate was basically dealing with the towing of homeless people. And i know jeff addressed that, as well, again in this proposal. And i appreciate him listening to me as staff did, as well, to make sure that we take care of the folks that should not be criminalizing poverty and i dont think thats the intent, nor the future. Secondly, i think jonathan may look at what is in store for us in respect to any money that may come from the tremendous effort that nancy pelosi just completed in washington with segment two of the stimulus bill to enhance the cares act. But maybe there may be transportation money there, as well. Lastly, i want to thank jeff and the the staff for embracing the teamsters and their concerns about their jobs and their particular issues in respect to contracting out. I know you all have ta taken a sensitive approach in your response. That tries to address the issues affecting some of our most valued employees. And lastly, i just want to say that i think that this is the most difficult part and i know many of you have had this experience and i know malcolm has of putting a budget together that affects and impacts the undeserved and lowincome people the least. And i think we need to reiterate exactly what this proposal does to help them, what the issues are with the clipper card and how that affects lowincome people and how and most importantly, we need to save our employees. Well be looking for other monies. And i think thats important to note, as well. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, director torez. Director eakin, the floor is yours. I just want to join in thanking the staff for teeing up such a thoughtful conversation to receive and put from the board and the public. I think there are definitely many things we can be proud of in this budget and i think muni for all use in San Francisco is a breakthrough and the way things should be and i personally feel proud were able to accomplish that, especially in this budget and economic context. And dr. Tumlin mentioned, no increased in the singleride cash fare and thats an intentional decision being made in light of a lot of input received. I want to acknowledge, because we havent talked about it, that were creating a Brand New Office of raising questionty and inclusion at sfmta that i think will serve all of us to further elevate the equity issues were hearing from commenters and i think thats also a remarkable accomplishment in this budget context. And then i want to address all of the Public Commenters who have concerns about transit fares. I just want to say we have heard you and that your input has impacted our thinking and i believe the selection of the equity clipper scenario goes as far as we can to address your concerns while also generated the needed revenue to pay for critical Transit Service. I dont want you to think were not hearing you. We are hearing you and your Voice Matters in this process. I just want to pose a couple of quick questions for leo and jonathan i had in response to the presentation. So if we could go to slide 19. There are numbers for fy20, 21 and 22 and those numbers looked quite similar to the numbers that were presented to us at our last meeting on april 7th. I just wanted to confirm, are they the same numbers or do we have any new information to work with with with the revenue projections in terms of the next few years . So we did choose right now the economic shock on slight 19 is that well lose about 211 million this year, so its on the more severe end. For fiscal year 21 and 22, the number we selected between that range, between the two years is 173 million. So we think well lose, due to an economic downturn, 173 million. The majority of that being in fiscal year 21. Great. And slide 26, you estimate transit fare revenues and those numbers, again, looked relatively consistent with the numbers back in january. In terms of transit fare revenues and i wanted to confirm how those estimates have been adjusted with the ridership projection. The transit fare revenues are down and im glad you brought it up because we were having a lot of challenge, kind of redicting what will happen with parking and ridership. In the last one we saw ridership increase and fares decrease. So we did take into consideration that peoples comfort was coming back to transit will take a lot longer, number one. And that was built in and revenues are lower in both years. However, San Francisco itself, and this is one of the key levels of advocacy, especially in the region, has a very transit dependent population. And you even heard that from somsome of the speakers. A lot people in San Francisco use the transit to get to work and their daytoday transport and other needs in the city. So we kind of took that into account, as well. Plus, the faceboo fare increases included. So i would tell you right now, my personal belief and this came up, is that were probably being too optimistic about transit fare revenue and being too conservative about parking revenue. But what we felt was between the two, they would net out. So we didnt change it. Great. Third question is on slide 28. And this is related to the reserve and the fund balance so i just wanted to clear about this. Were starting with 293, and the 129 million is going into the reserve. So when you look at slide 22 and the beginning balance of 39, separately somewhere else, 139 is accounted for. That is correct and we would add another five and it could go up to 134 in fiscal year 22. I thought that was a little misleading. Its an additional five on top of the 139. In 21, we are cutting into the fun balance but not going below the 10 balance. And in 22, well be rebuilding and be below. No, maintained at the 10 reserved. Because the budget increases, i got you. Sorry, amanda. Thats a great addition. And then my last question on page 33, you mention youll come back to the board with updates on Fiscal Health of the agency, just wanted to understand how often well be hearing those updates. So the city budget is being delayed for final approval until october and so, the city is always, as leo noted, in budget from june to july and then final approval in august and that will be delayed until october. Thats one quarter for us. And depending on how the Public Health orders are maintained between now and october, well get a view. I think currently, were thinking to give you a quarterly update on the health of the agency so a month after, maybe, just before thanksgiving, after the final budget is approved by the board of supervisors and then definitely early january or february of 2021. Great, it feel like were in an era where we learn something new everyday. So i would encourage those to be as regular as you feel they are relevant. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you, vice chair borden. I want to thank jonathan and leo for all of your hard work on this budget and you have very much, i think, taken into consideration the issues that we as a board brought up, and then also had to deal with a real unexpected change in financial fortunes that happened in the middle of this process. I want to thank you and commend you on all of the work youve done. So for those members of the public, its think its important to point out. Evacueweve talked about the fon how we really tried to calibrate increasing the number of people who are not paying fares, whether its for homeless individuals, students and youth and others. We really are trying to expand the programs as much as possible and we really reduced as much pressure as we could on people at the bottom. We know that its not enough. Theres more to be done and we know that it will be a tough economic time for many going forward. Unfortunately, we are up against the reality ourselves that as an agency, well be looking at major funding shortfalls, local government will be looking at major funding shortfalls and State Government will be looking at shortfalls and its been a real balance. Someone earlier asked about parking meters and were significantly expanding parking meter hours, going back to sundays. I mean, were looking at all kinds of ways to increase that revenue. And as people would look at the budget, the parking revenue and find the greater number in our budget than actual fares. So i think that, you know, its been really hard. Obviously, it is not our first choice to raise fares at this time. But the reality is that weve made great gains in the agency and hacking away on the one side, the capital side dealing withide and the operational side and getting things done. Weve made a lot of work by making those investments and we cant i mean, now we cannot afford to keep our fares stagnant if we wanted to because of the economic realities. This is the reality a lot of businesses will be facing in the next month. I work a lot i restaurants and theyre trying to figure out, like, how can they afford to raise their prices if they can seat less people and stay open . This is just a reality of the economy that were looking at going forward. And i just want to commend staff for bringing us this budget, taking into account the equity plan and trying to be creative in different sources. We didnt even go into the some of the cuts we made or close to where we want to be in the capital program. But i think this is a great this is the best i mean, we have a balanced budget at the time when its hard to do that and were lucky we have the fund reserve to put into some places. Obviously, if we had an external source of money that wanted to pay for a certain population of individuals, i think we would be open to it, but i just dont know in the climate where so many people are fundraising for so many things that is likely. So please know we do this with a really heavy heart. All of us, my work is dried up in terms of things that i do. So i understand how that is for people, but at the same time, in order to provide the service at the level that people who rely on the service need it to be we just, there are no other choices to entertain at this time. So i just wanted to say that. I want to thank the public for all of their input. Were looking for more and Creative Ideas and if there are Funding Sources that can become available in the future, we would explore how to expand having less people. Wonderful, thank you very much. Director hemmingger. Hemminger. I am going to vote for the budget, but im going to do so, i think, with one very significant reservation and that has to do with the subject that i think most of us have been talking about, including the public for the last couple of hours, transit. I do consider it a failing that i consider it a failing that i couldnt maintain a discount for clipper. I agree with miss dupree that labeling this the equity clipper oclipperis a bit of a misnomer. As the staff report indicates, clipper customers are about 200,000 folks and 30 are lowincome. Thats 60,000 people. So thats a pretty significant number of folks who will see a fare increase. Im also troubled by it because clipper represents a very significant, 400 million regional investment in a fare collection system. And it benefits riders all over the region because the clippers card within the basic idea is you can use it to ride any system. But the guts of clipper are about muni and bart. Those two systems represent about twothirds of the patrons. Barts appls plan for the futue to go all in on clipper and to be clipper only. We seem to be taking a step backward by removing the incentive to use clipper. In doing so, theres a cost that goes with that. And that is that it costs more to run two fare collection systems than one. And muni is sticking to two and bart willing try t is trying to. I hope we can continue to talk about that choice, because its a choice that does have a cost, even though it appears that its a way to raise some revenue now to offer some reduced fares for other customers. Nolet me talk about that, secondly. To talk about what the free means. And this budget does expand free muni for middleclass and upperincome kids and on its face, that sounds a little bit odd. But i think there are some good technical and policy reasons for doing so. I think our chairman eloquently outlined that in terms of building a ridership base for the future at our last meeting. I think theres a counter fundamentaargument to that. I would put it this way, that people not to value things that are free or that they think are free. They really dont have any skin in the game. Remember, the average contribution of a transit rider in San Francisco to the cost of tear bus ride is 20 . Three covering 20 of the cost is the taxpayer, the motorist and other sources are covering 80 of the cost and the capital cost of running this is 100 theres a significant investment already in systems around the region. And driving the last few wards tyardsto the goal line to free t without a cost. What i worry about is that free muni is considered to be somehow free to the mta when its not at all. And any reduced fare for one class of passengers has to be paid for by either a cut in service or a higher fare for another class of passengers. And i think, really, the debate that is headed our way and its the debate that will be had in cities around the country, one of the commenters mentioned kansas city, is whether we should forget about this and make it free for everybody. And as my colleagues know, here in San Francisco, thats a 200 million a year proposition what i worry about again is that we will spend years arguing over how to fill a 200 million revenue hole of our own making rather than seeking new revenue for the capital and operating holes that we already have. And i do think that debate is going to come four square in front of us. Weve been nibbling around the edges with lowerincome travelers and kids and seniors for many years. And theyre all surrogates and that will get to the question of should Transit Service cost the passenger anything . And we arent there yet but we