BART weighs layoffs, more ambassadors
BART is rolling out a moneysaving plan that includes employee retirement incentives and contemplates modifying train service.
In a worstcase scenario, the train system could cut staff as it struggles during the pandemic. At the same time, the agency might invest in unarmed ambassadors as it debates how to make the system safer.
BART saw more than 54,000 riders on Thursday — a peak since March — but still only 13% of prepandemic ridership. Management predicts ridership won’t rise to past levels until July 2022.
With lost revenue, the agency faces a $ 33 million budget shortfall in the last quarter of the fiscal year that ends in June. If proposed costcutting measures don’t fill the gap, the agency could announce layoffs in December, to take effect in February.
“That is only as a last resort,” BART General Manager Bob Powers told The Chronicle on Friday. “We are carrying 54,000 people a day and I would argue a vast majority are transit dependent, and we need to be there for them. We need to continue to be there as the underpinning of the transit network in the Bay Area.”
The oncebooming train system is in the tricky position of needing to cut its budget, while not wanting to trim so much that it can’t fulfill its public service mission. Deep
cuts could make it harder to recover postpandemic. Meanwhile, leaders are closely watching local governments and businesses, realizing how interdependent they are as the Bay Area tries to revive its economy.
BART’s Board of Directors will discuss the plan to tackle the budget crisis and another of this year’s biggest issues — policing — at a meeting Thursday.
Despite possible cuts, the Police Department is looking to fill around a dozen positions. The board also will vote on a proposal to double the agency’s unarmed safety ambassador program to respond to mental health and homelessness crises as debates about police reform rage among board members.
BART is using federal funding to cover the first three quarters of its budget this fiscal year. The agency’s longterm proposal includes streamlining contracting, adopting a hiring freeze and retraining staff for open positions, which are already happening, and a new retirement incentive program. Powers said that plan was “very promising,” but declined to discuss details until after next week’s board meeting.
Union leaders said Friday they did not have details yet on potential buyouts. Sal Cruz, president of AFSCME Local 3993, which represents 440 midlevel supervisors, said at least 30% of BART’s staff are eligible for retirement, but not all may want or be able to retire.
“I’m anxious myself to see where that might lead,” Cruz said. “I’m very impressed that up to this point they were able to keep everybody employed and working very, very hard.”
John Arantes, a transit vehicle mechanic and president of SEIU 1021’ s BART chapter, which represents nearly 1,900 workers, said in a statement that the union “is working with management to increase the system’s efficiency and save money, including completely voluntary opportunities for some of our more senior workers to enjoy a welldeserved retirement.”
Service cuts are under consideration. BART is toying with four scenarios, ranging from keeping current service to using shorter trains on the weekend, ending weekend service or closing stations with fewer than 500 daily riders or within walking distance of another stop.
Staff will propose a service plan at November’s meeting, which would require the board to revote on the budget in January. Service changes would take effect in February.
But even as BART looks to save money, it is scaling up to address one of its most intractable and contentious issues — safety. Over the past six years, property crime rates have remained relatively stable, while violent crime has more than doubled in the BART system, police reports show.
Crime overall was down by 58% this September compared to last year, but ridership dropped 87%.
Directors and their challengers in the upcoming election are debating the best way to prevent and respond to crime and make riders feel safe. Some push for more police and funding more secure fare gates, while others want to invest in unarmed ambassadors and county partnerships to provide social services for the homeless, drugaddicted and mentally ill.
Funding for 10 more safety ambassadors would come from leaving positions open in other departments. Ambassadors are trained in deescalation and conflict avoidance, but do not make arrests, run warrants or carry weapons, although they have radios to call police.
The pilot program, which started with 10 ambassadors in February, was disrupted by the pandemic. Instead of patrolling trains regularly, ambassadors primarily checked platforms, answered rider questions and enforced transit rules, including paying fares, not eating, not playing loud music, not taking a bicycle on an escalator and wearing a mask.
According to a BART report, they called police between four times a month in June and 13 times a month in May and July, as well as providing medical assistance to two unconscious individuals.
Directors who pushed police reform said they’ve received positive feedback about the program and want to formalize partnerships with counties that could connect struggling riders with social services.
“We come face to face with residents throughout the five county Bay Area who require a social service and law enforcement response,” said Board President Lateefah Simon.
She said she is not arguing “we need to ditch our police department,” but said asking police officers to respond to someone who’s homeless and in a mental health crisis was “a bad use of time.”
Other directors disagreed over whether ambassadors would reduce crime.
“It’s an incredibly dangerous proposal that is being put forth to not have police officers respond to what is viewed by someone on the train as a mental health crisis or activity,” said director Debora Allen. “The crime, the homelessness, the mental illness cases, the mayhem, that is all going to stay.”
Allen said one solution to prevent crime was putting in more secure fare gates. Directors voted to approve new gates last year, arguing they would keep out criminals and help stem up to $ 25 million lost yearly to fare evasion. But they haven’t yet funded the $ 90 million project, and that’s likely three to five years in the future, said director John McPartland.
Keith Garcia, president of the BART Police Officers Association, also tied crime rates to the failure to fund gates and said some of the most violent crimes in the system were committed by people who didn’t pay fares.
“We will be nothing but reactive with the amount of people we have as long as the system is allowed to be so porous, and criminals and the homeless and drug addicts and the mentally ill will just wander in and out of the system,”
Garcia said.
Candidates in the upcoming election offer differing perspectives to incumbents on policing.
“When someone is being attacked, they do not want an unarmed civilian who is just going to call the police, they want someone who can stop the attack,” said Sharon Kidd, who is facing Simon. “The issues with homeless and the mentally ill are an overflow from the cities we service. The simple solution to this problem is hardening the BART stations.”
Allen’s challenger, Jamie Salcido, wants to see more homeless outreach teams and environmental changes to make BART safer. While she supports new fare gates, she wasn’t confident they would make up for as much lost revenue as her opponent hoped with ridership so low.
“I want to make sure I’m consulting with multidisciplinary experts as to how to solve these problems and not only looking at a police solution,” Salcido said.