Cap Metro's Budget Blues

The belts just keep getting tighter at Capital Metro. Randy Hume, the transit authority's executive vice president of finance and administration, presented to the Cap Metro board of directors' Planning, Finance, and Audit Committee on Monday an outline of the proposed FY 2010 budget. Contracting sales taxes due to the nation's current economic woes are a huge problem – Hume projected that tax revenue will be down 5% ($9.9 million) from FY 2009, and that's after a $14 million decrease from the previous year. Hume said service reductions would be likely to keep the agency in the black and meet its goal of building up a severely depleted cash reserve, but Leander mayor and board member John Cowman urged Hume to look for other savings because, "Our core value is to provide service. This violates our core mission." The full board will likely discuss the numbers more at this Monday's meeting, and then the proposed budget will be published on Tuesday. That will be followed by public review and input Sept. 1-21, including public hearings about fare increases and the overall budget Sept. 21. Final adoption will take place at the Sept. 28 board meeting. (For more info, see www.capmetro.org.) Meanwhile, after previously announcing that for financial reasons it would no longer print its "Destinations" schedule book, Capital Metro has found a way to print small quantities of them and has introduced an improved way to view it online. Hard copies will be available for $3 at Cap Metro's Transit Store (323 Congress) or $5 if purchased online; the digital version (free) is at Cap Metro's website under "Schedules and Maps," a subhead of "Riding Capital Metro."