METRO found $29.2 million in sales tax it did not forecast. Its road and sidewalk program still drops from $100.4 million to $40 million.

METRO’s board adopted a $1.7 billion fiscal 2027 budget on September 30 that puts $40 million into roads, sidewalks and bus stops. The same budget carries $29.2 million in sales tax revenue the agency did not expect, and the infrastructure line still falls from $100.4 million.

Why it matters

METRO’s infrastructure program is the part of the agency’s spending that reaches people who never board a bus. It repairs the street and the sidewalk along the route. Cutting it 60 percent in the same week the agency books $29.2 million in unbudgeted sales tax is a choice about priorities, not a response to a shortfall.

By the numbers

$1.7 billion total fiscal 2027 budget.
$40 million for roads, sidewalks and bus stops along transit routes. That is 2.4 percent of the budget.
$100.4 million was the fiscal 2026 Infrastructure Improvement Program budget. The drop is $60.4 million, or 60.2 percent.
$64.4 million of that $100.4 million was spent as of August 31, leaving about $36 million unspent with one month to go.
$29.2 million in additional sales tax revenue, which Mass Transit reports as 2.6 percent above the original estimate. That implies an original sales tax line near $1.12 billion. The implication is our arithmetic; no source published the base figure.
$231 million transfers to the General Mobility Program, the money METRO sends to member cities and the county for streets. That is 5.8 times the infrastructure line.
68 buses, 116 METROLift vehicles, 195 vans and 39 alternative service vehicles are funded. Ridership is projected to grow 2.8 percent.

What the coverage buried

The two numbers that belong in one sentence are not in one story. Mass Transit Magazine reported the $29.2 million sales tax upgrade and never mentioned the infrastructure program. FOX 26 reported the $40 million and the $100.4 million it replaces and never mentioned the sales tax. A reader of either story cannot see that the revenue news and the spending cut arrived together.

No story says what $29.2 million is 2.6 percent of. Without that denominator the figure is unsizable, which is the difference between a rounding error and a tenth of the infrastructure budget.

FOX 26 also publishes three fiscal 2026 infrastructure figures without reconciling them: $100.4 million budgeted, $64.4 million spent through August 31, and $73.3 million of repairs “advanced.” Those are three different measures of the same program and the story does not say how they relate.

The other side

The honest case for the cut is that METRO could not spend the money. The agency moved $64.4 million of a $100.4 million program in eleven months, and padding a line it does not execute is its own form of waste. Board Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock and Interim President and CEO Tom Jasien both framed the budget around protecting existing service, and it does: no service cuts, no reserve drawdown, no debt restructuring in fiscal 2027. That is a disciplined balance sheet after a hard year.

The answer is the ratio. A 60 percent cut does not match a 36 percent underspend. And the General Mobility transfer of $231 million, which goes out the door to other governments, is almost six times what METRO budgets for the sidewalks it controls directly.

What to watch

Whether the $40 million holds once METRO posts the adopted budget. Every figure above comes from news coverage, not the agency’s book.
The fiscal 2026 close-out number in October or November. If the final spend lands near $73.3 million rather than $64.4 million, the $40 million looks less defensible.
Where the $29.2 million went. A sales tax upgrade that is not assigned to a program in the adopted budget is worth asking about.
The next ridership report against the 2.8 percent projection.

Bottom line

METRO protected service, avoided a reserve draw and got better sales tax news than it forecast. It also cut the program that fixes the street outside the bus stop by 60 percent. Both of those are in the same budget, and no single story this week printed both.

Sources

Editorial