He estimated that by spring 2013, the surplus will be wiped out.
“The fund goes into the red,” Dyson said. “The City Council would have to decide if they should supplement from the General Fund to keep it at its present level.”
For the Proposition A fund, of which Got Wheels!, a bus service for students, and the senior bus line are a part, revenues are estimated at $2.1 million, well below expenditures of $2.4 million, according to information presented at Monday's commission meeting.
Commissioners have taken the first steps of looking for savings so the surplus will last longer, while examining alternative sources of income, including bus ads and small but mandatory payments for seniors and the disabled, Dyson said.
This fiscal year, the Proposition C fund, of which the fixed route service is part of, is estimated to have $1.6 million in expenditures, slightly more than the $1.5 million in anticipated revenues.
The surplus in the Proposition C fund is expected to last three to four years, Dyson said.
Got Wheels! saw its popularity wane with most students using the bus to and from school, which officials said was not how the funding was to be used.
The City Council will decide if the program will be eliminated.
The fixed route was reorganized last year, including the elimination of the downtown circulator route.
When the possibility of trimming senior and disabled services came up last spring, many bus riders spoke out at City Hall, prompting the City Council to task the Transportation Commission with finding other alternatives to keep operations in the black.
From July to December, about 44,000 seniors and disabled people used the appointment-based service, which runs daily. It’s the oldest-running bus service in the city, said David Kriske, senior transportation planner.
