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CONTACT: Jeff Wagner,
Communications Director - CTA
Phone: (916) 752-4150
April 9, 2009
Transit Providers Join the Call for Budget Reform
Association advises panel charged with modernizing state revenue laws
SACRAMENTO — Urging an end to continued raids on state public transit funding, the California
Transit Association has submitted recommendations for establishing a "stable, predictable source of
long-term funding" to the Commission on the 21st Century Economy, a panel charged with studying
ways of modernizing California's out-of-date revenue laws that have contributed to ongoing feast-orfamine
budget cycles.
“The latest budget shell game only reinforced what we have long known to be true – that serious
reform of the budget process is long overdue,” said Joshua Shaw, Executive Director of the California
Transit Association. “We’re hopeful that the formation of this commission and the work it undertakes
can be a vital step in that direction.”
The Association's report calls for the commission to support continuation and strengthening of the
transportation funding mechanisms first put into place by the state in 1971 through the Transportation
Development Act, to modernize and standardize the existing TDA revenue stream, and to restore
stability and predictability to other sources of state transit funding that have been put in place since the
TDA was enacted.
The recommendations also urge constitutional protections to strengthen the intent of voters when they
passed 1990's Proposition 116, which established the Public Transportation Account as a trust fund
whose revenues were dedicated to "transportation planning and mass transportation purposes," and to
clarify voters' intent in defining mass transportation purposes as "only those such as state, regional and
local bus and rail passenger service open to the general public."
The latter point has been a particular bone of contention given that state budgets since 2007 have
continually diverted PTA funds to cover such non-transit programs as home-to-school busing and
transport to regional occupational centers, programs previously funded through the General Fund and
clearly outside the definition of "public transportation." The raid on PTA funds has totaled $3 billion in
just the last two budget cycles. The latest budget package adopted in February completely
eliminated all state funding for transit operations, resulting in ongoing service reductions, fare
increases and job losses at transit agencies throughout the state.
“Budget crafters have been treating public transit as their personal piggy bank for years without ever
doing anything to truly solve the budget crisis. Year after year of massive cuts only got them to the
point of deciding that transit’s ‘fair share’ of the burden was to accept a complete elimination of
funding,” said Shaw. “That’s in blatant defiance of what voters have demanded, and a complete
contradiction of common sense 21st century planning.”
The Commission on the 21st Century Economy was created through an Executive Order issued in
December, 2008 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to suggest changes to state and local revenues that
will result in a revenue stream that is more stable and reflective of the California economy. The
Commission will report its findings to the Governor and legislature on or before July 31, 2009.
Click here (PDF File) to read the full recommendation from the California Transit Association.
Click here to learn more about the Commission on the 21st Century Economy.
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