No guarantee costly plans would lift city
Economist and 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize winner Milton Friedman said: “One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions, rather than their results.”
For months, the San Antonio City Council has discussed what would be the appropriate use of a 1⁄8- cent sales tax. On Aug. 14, the council voted 9-2 to add the proposition for the workforce development plan to the November ballot, replacing the Edwards Aquifer Protection Program, or EAPP. The initiative is on the ballot as city of San Antonio Proposition B, a workforce development plan funded through 2025 projected to cost up to $154 million.
VIA Metropolitan Transit also has a ballot proposal — ATD Proposition A — to use the 1⁄8- cent after the workforce development proposition expires, and this would last forever. VIA plans to use the
1⁄8- cent to fund a program it has coined Keep SA Moving.
The City Council has already committed $75 million from the CARES Act to fund workforce development. Adding $154 million more over four years through Proposition B is not the best solution for lifting our community from these uncertain times. We missed a huge opportunity when we allocated most of the federal CARES Act funding toward workforce development and not to struggling small businesses.
There are too many unresolved issues surrounding Proposition B. For instance, training a workforce that does not fit the demand in our economy leaves new workers without employment and causes them to pursue careers elsewhere.
At present, the workforce development plan does not even provide assurances to keep these new trainees in San Antonio. We could be signing on to train workers who move to other high-paying cities at the expense of San Antonio residents. Those who enroll would not be required to complete the program, and the required completion rate with job placement is only 50 percent, leaving us on the hook to possibly waste half of the $150 million proposed. COVID-19 has caused job losses across the board, and some businesses closed forever. Policies such as workforce development take funding away from businesses that need relief.
The proposed Workforce Development would be funded by the 1⁄8- cent sales tax starting in 2021 and running through 2025. VIA would not be able to use the tax until January 2026, which raises two questions: Why vote on this now? And why would we commit to tax ourselves now for something that is not active for five more years? The state of transit could vastly change in five years. Voting on this funding for VIA now does not make sense.
VIA has done a great job serving vulnerable populations across the community with the funding it already receives. Yet VIA has made interesting decisions to expand its transit system in places where nobody is using it. Look at the $30 million Park & Ride station in Stone Oak. This shouldn’t be a situation where “if we build it, they will come.” VIA has built it — and no one has come. How are we to trust VIA with more funding with expensive missteps like this? Instead of expanding across the city, VIA should focus its efforts on areas that have the highest need, which wouldn’t require additional funding to accomplish; more money does not equal a better transit system.
VIA has proven it is innovative within its current means. VIA Link, which successfully debuted in District 10, provides ondemand transit much like Uber and Lyft. VIA Link is a great transit solution without the huge price tag. It has removed large empty buses from our neighborhoods and can be replicated in other areas at a more reasonable cost. VIA needs to look within and use its resources wisely. The old mindset that more bus frequency equals more riders is outdated. What we need is innovation, not poorly planned intentions.
Early voting begins Tuesday. I encourage each of you to dig into what the city and VIA are asking before making your decision. If one or either of these propositions fails, the existing sales tax would be reduced by 1⁄8- cent, with an opportunity to consider another ballot measure in May 2022. Let’s not rush these major decisions.