Three East Bay representatives deserve great credit for trying to restore some fiscal sanity and honesty to BART.
The Bay Area’s critical transit district is being run under a cloud of deceit. District officials last year convinced voters to pass a $3.5 billion bond measure for capital projects. They promised that the district would continue to kick in its fair share, but less than three months after the election they are moving to renege on that.
They could withdraw as much as $1.2 billion and redirect it to the district’s excessive labor costs. In effect, that means that a large chunk of the money from the bond sales, for which property owners will pay higher taxes for decades to come, will not go for the capital projects that were promised.
Instead it will go to cover the district’s mounting projected operating shortfall, now forecast at more than $300 million over the next 10 years.
Credit Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, and Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, with trying to rein in this financial train wreck. Credit newly elected Assemblyman Tim Grayson, D-Concord, for backing some of their efforts.
While the rest of their Bay Area legislative colleagues give tacit consent to this mismanagement of public funds, Baker and Glazer are proposing simple, meaningful changes.
For starters, Baker’s AB 1509 would require that BART keep its promise to the voters by making its full $1.2 billion contribution to capital projects. If it failed to do so, the state would withhold a like amount of sales taxes.
Glazer’s two bills attempt to address the underlying cause of BART’s behavior: sweetheart labor contracts that the district cannot afford but agrees to under the threat of strikes that can gridlock Bay Area roadways.
SB 603 would prohibit BART officials from signing labor agreements that limit its ability to prepare for a strike. Under the current contract, only a “qualified train operator” can drive trains, and they’re all union members. Glazer’s bill would enable BART to train management workers so they’re prepared in case of a strike.
SB 604 would simply prohibit BART workers from striking after a contract runs out if the district continues to maintain provisions of the old contract and that old contract has a no-strike clause.
As reasonable as these measures are, Baker and Glazer will have a tough time garnering support in the labor-dominated Legislature.
But they might have leverage: The Legislature will soon be considering a transportation infrastructure package and placing a bridge toll increase on the ballot from which BART wants even more money.
BART shouldn’t get more until its leaders start managing what they have responsibly.
