NEW: BART has a message for voters… fund fraud, or lose your stations. The Bay Area public transportation system is currently staring down a $400 million annual deficit — and it’s threatening to shut down stations unless voters approve a half-cent to one-cent regional sales tax in November. If the tax isn’t approved, BART claims stations could go dark as early as January 2027. But, as @garrytan explains, given BART’s track record of incompetence, graft, and crime over the last decade, this tax hike isn’t so much a fiscal necessity as it is a shakedown… • In 2023, BART spent $96 million (14% of the agency’s entire operating budget) on employee overtime. One employee, a janitor with a base salary of $57,945, earned $271,000 in 2015 when accounting for this overtime pay. When KTVU pulled security footage, they found this janitor disappearing into a storage closet for hours at a time. • In 2016-17, BART paid 8 employees to staff the Warm Springs/South Fremont station for seven months… before the station was even open. • Multiple BART employees have been caught running time theft schemes, clocking in for work and then going home or running personal errands while collecting full pay. • Meanwhile, BART’s own expenses show just how upside-down its business model has become. In FY2024, fare revenue was roughly $219 million, covering less than a quarter of operating costs. Before the pandemic, fares covered about two-thirds of these costs. Over the past decade, even though ridership has fallen more than 50%, BART’s employee headcount rose by almost 30%, and total employee spending nearly doubled. This tax is being framed as “save transit” versus “doomsday” — but that’s a lie. The real choice is whether to reward mismanagement or demand reform. The path to a thriving, functioning transit system isn’t simply pouring more money into a broken system. Full piece threaded 👇