Committee forwards $38.1 million to SFMTA amid debate over Muni reliability and funding priorities

The Budget and Finance Committee forwarded to the full Board an ordinance that would appropriate approximately $38.1 million in excess ERAF property tax revenue to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), including roughly $19 million to accelerate light rail vehicle (LRV) procurement, $13.8 million for energy-efficiency audits and facility improvements, and $5 million for a small-business impact mitigation fund. The ordinance places the full $38.1 million on the Controller’s reserve pending confirmation of state cash-flow timing.

Leo Levinson, SFMTA’s chief financial officer, told the committee the LRV program is a multiyear, billion-dollar effort to replace and expand the fleet. He said manufacturing limits at Siemens had pushed the schedule toward 2027 and that opening an additional manufacturing facility could accelerate deliveries by “as much as potentially 18 months,” but would add extra costs that SFMTA is still negotiating. Levinson said SFMTA intends to apply about $19 million from this ordinance toward those acceleration costs and will look across its capital program if additional gaps remain.

Levinson described the $13.8 million energy-efficiency allocation as funding audits and improvements at several older facilities — including potential major solar projects at Metro East and others — that could reduce the rate of future cost increases, particularly as the agency electrifies buses and expands fleet electricity use. He said the $5 million merchant mitigation fund would be allocated on a case-by-case basis with substantial outreach and coordination with the Mayor’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development, and that a precise program design was not yet presented to the committee.

Public commenters pressed staff and supervisors to prioritize immediate reliability and underlying infrastructure. Christopher Peterson said “Muni Metro right now is facing a crisis in reliability” and urged that extra funds be used to address daily breakdowns and system failures. Rachel Bridal, executive director of San Francisco Transit Riders, representing about 500 organization members and citing roughly 170,000 daily Muni riders, told the committee that spending that “does not improve service today is quite frankly a smack in the face to a 170,000 people who rely on Muni Metro every single day.”

Supervisor Mandelmann moved to forward the ordinance to the full Board with a positive recommendation and to prepare a committee report; the motion was taken without objection. The ordinance and any acceleration plan will be subject to negotiations with manufacturers and future capital-program reprioritization if additional funding gaps persist.