Generally cloudy. Slight chance of a shower late. High 66F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..
Cloudy skies with periods of rain late. Low near 60F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Locally heavy rainfall possible.
Updated: November 12, 2025 @ 8:18 am
SamTrans is holding off on adding new positions and will contemplate fare increases to help mitigate its structural deficit, projected to reach $9 million in about a year.
For the current fiscal year, which ends in June, the agency is projecting a $29 million deficit, however, that is still better than originally anticipated and will be able to close much of the gap via one-time funding sources.
Even though this fiscal year’s budget is more favorable than prior projections, Chief Financial Officer Kate Jordan Steiner said that may not be the case over the next couple years.
“Although our short-term financial outlook has improved compared to the adopted budget, this is largely driven by one-time savings and timing, not structural changes,” Steiner said. “Our sales tax volatility and uncertain state and federal funding underline the need for us to implement fiscal discipline in our future budgets.”
The agency is contemplating a number of options and has already halted adding new full-time positions. While farebox revenue only constitutes about 4% of its total revenue — most coming from sales tax — it also plans to conduct a fare analysis, which could result in higher fare costs.
Jeff Gee, SamTrans board member and Redwood City councilmember, said he was mostly concerned with the impacts of funding cuts on paratransit services.
“What happens if federal funding for paratransit disappears? What do we need to do to backfill that?” Gee said.
The deficit is not unique to other transit agencies throughout the Peninsula and Bay Area. However, unlike major operators like Caltrain, SamTrans’ ridership has just about made a full recovery pre-pandemic, illustrating the agency’s reliance on sales tax revenue and economic trends. Many transit agencies could potentially receive state funds as part of a $2 billion proposal at the state level, and efforts to add a Bay Area transit measure — which would help major operators out of their shortfalls — are underway.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated SamTrans will stop hiring new full-time employees. A correction has made been to reflect the agency is not adding new full-time positions.
(650) 344-5200 ext. 102
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(3) comments
If I remember correctly just last year SamTrans announced a $342M surplus over the next 10 years. Only serious cost-containment problems could lead to budget issues so quickly.
SamTrans also has fixed, predictable income since they are completely covered by the Measure W sales tax initiative. Jeff Gee doesn't really care about ridership, empty buses or customer satisfaction since only 5% of the revenue is really about ridership. If he cared about customers we would see bus shelters in Redwood City and we would see more buses on school routes.
But Jeff Gee is paid by a real estate developer (literally). So he was more interested in buying a second HQ. SamTrans also decided to upgrade North Base 200 in an area in danger of Sea Level Rise rather than moving the whole operation to higher ground before the upgrades.
This isn't a revenue problem, this is a management and cost-containment issue.
Kind of hypocritical … inflated administrative staff positions where some bosses are doing the exact same job as everybody else and they have inflated the number of middle management supervisors. Back when veteran drivers started the training dept had 5 people and they now have increased it to 13 - 8 more positions in 13 years doesn't actually make a lot of sense when the amount of drivers are relatively the same.
So the only options are to hold off on hiring new workers and contemplate fare increases? Note there is no effort by SamTrans to streamline capacity to better reflect ridership. It sounds like SamTrans is still planning on operating at 100% capacity even though there is likely 50% or less capacity in ridership. Vote NO on any potential measures to continue funding SamTrans until they make an effort at fiscal management. Don’t worry, if you have voter remorse after voting NO, SamTrans will propose more measures in the near and far future, forever…because they need money to pay for ever increasing pensions and benefits, and of course, operating at 100% capacity. I’d bet even if ridership declines to 10%.
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