Thread by @jbhenchman

.@wmata saying *again* they'll have to slash all service unless the feds cough up more money

*change rail service from every 6 mins to every 30 mins
*close at 9pm
*shutter 22 stations
*reduce bus service 30% to 50%

*overall 2022 budget would be 2.3% less than 2021 budget

https://twitter.com/jbhenchman/status/1364619647706923011

@wmata You may ask why do all that drastic stuff to cut your budget by 2%? Isn't there any easier way to get 2% savings?

I ask that too.

Part of this is pessimistic projections. WMATA brought in $784m in fares in FY 2019, $580m in FY 2020 (half in the pandemic), $180m in FY 2021, and is projecting just $222m for FY 2022 (the year starting July 1, 2021).

The plan proposes dismissing ~2,500 of Metro's 12,675 employees. But personnel costs drop only 6% from $1.31b to $1.24b.

Fringe benefits barely drop, from $447m to $437m. Pension costs go up, from $165m to $169m.

On the Metrorail sub-budget, cutting service from 10 trains
an hour to trains an hour doesn't save money on anything except electricity:

Personnel: goes up 0.5%, $775m to $778m.

Outsourced Services: goes up 5%, $146m to $153m

Supplies: up 9%, $64m to $70m

Fringe benefits will be $52,306 per employee, or 50% of average pay

WMATA has 240 employees in their Financial Operations division under their CFO. Here's the full document they came up with:

wmata.com/about/records/…

On that tweet above, meant to say "cutting service from 10 trains an hour to 2 trains an hour."

Also interestingly they wrongly assume fare revenue doesn't change much with that service cut.

https://twitter.com/jbhenchman/status/1364619647706923011

@AdamTuss how did WMATA manage to turn a budget proposing a 2.3% cut in expenses into the apocalypse?

@maustermuhle how did WMATA manage to turn a budget proposing a 2.3% cut in expenses into the apocalypse?