Sacramento just proposed a horrible budget idea that belongs at the back of the bus | Opinion

This is one of the smallest cuts proposed in next year’s Sacramento city budget. But if passed, it would say nothing good about the values and priorities at City Hall.

City Manager Howard Chan wants to eliminate the ability of Sacramento’s youth to ride for free on Regional Transit. He wants to save $1 million in a $1.6 billion budget.

The City Council should say no to Chan and find a cut elsewhere. But there is a broader conversation to be had. It is about how the city solves problems that don’t fit tidily into a single government’s responsibility. Chan, who orchestrated $45 million worth of employee salary raises burdening the coming year’s budget, wants to retreat from a broader role for the city. How else are we going to solve problems?

In 2019, then-City Councilman Jay Schenirer saw a vexing problem facing the city and its youth. An estimated 16 percent of students in the Sacramento City Unified School District were designated as “chronically absent.” Getting to and from school was among the key reasons.

A former Sac City board member, Schenirer understood how school problems were city problems. So Schenirer proposed for the city to invest in its youth. He proposed to create a program allowing Sacramento minors to apply for free passes with Regional Transit. He proposed using a share of sales tax money approved by voters persuaded by city leaders to tax themselves to spend some of this money on youth, economic development and other civic needs.

The City Council could have said student absenteeism was the school district’s problem, or Regional Transit’s problem and stayed safely in its municipal silo. Schenirer, however, managed to get the votes.

And so was born the “RydeFreeRT” program. It has been a documented success. An independent study has found an increase in ridership to school, after-school events, and to non-school destinations. That means fewer cars on the road driving their kids around and less congestion.

Schenirer left the council., leaving the program without its champion at City Hall. Chan is looking to redirect the money to help close the city’s budget gap.

This issue has a lot of history, and none of it is on Chan’s side. Efforts to keep RT fares low or zero for youth stretch back decades. Previous Bee Editorial boards advocated on behalf of students on this subject in 2001. Regional Transit is under never-ending pressure to find every dollar it can to keep its system afloat. It has required vigilance by both students and leaders like Schenirer to remember what is the right thing to do.

A budget is an expression of a government’s values. Saving a small amount of money at the expense of parents, youth and schools and Regional Transit reveals a small mindset by Sacramento staff to recommend this. Keep RydeFreeRT alive. Give Sacramento’s youth the mobility that they need. Spend sales tax money on society-improving initiatives that motivated the voters to give the city this money. Chan’s bad idea deserves to be sent to the proverbial back of the bus.