Additional update: The City of Sacramento adopted its FY 2024-2025 budget last night, with $250K allocated to RydeFreeRT. Mayor Darrell Steinberg said he had a letter of commitment from the three other district superintendents (Elk Grove, Twin Rivers, Natomas) to fulfill the remaining $250K funding gap. STAR does not have any independent confirmation of this.

SacRT Board passed the RydeFreeRT agenda item 2.5 as part of the consent agenda. Despite requests from the transit advocacy community that the board discuss the issue, the item was not pulled from the consent agenda. The agenda item passes responsibility from the board to the General Manager. Board chair Patrick Kennedy said that the board is taking the issue seriously, and said that the funding issue had been largely solved. General Manager Henry Li did not support the idea that funding has been solved.

Sacramento City Unified Unified School District (SCUSD) apparently passed allocation of $250K to the program at their board meeting on June 6. The minutes are not available, so can’t be confirmed yet, but several people confirmed that it had happened.

Sacramento County has apparently committed to an additional $250K contribution to the program. We haven’t been able to confirm this, but it has been stated by board chair Patrick Kennedy who also is a Sacramento County Supervisor.

Assuming these commitments have been made, there is still a shortfall of $250K for the program budget. SacRT and Darrell Steinberg have said they are negotiating with the other three school districts in or partially in the city of Sacramento (Elk Grove Unified, Natomas Unified, and Twin Rivers Unified), but it is important to remember that school districts have already proposed, and in some cases, adopted, budget for the coming school year/fiscal year. They will be reluctant to transfer funds to the RydeFreeRT program.

STAR does not think that the RydeFreeRT is out of the woods. There is still a significant chance of a shortfall, threatening the program.

STAR agrees that in the long run, school districts, including those throughout the SacRT service area, should be making significant contributions to the program. But the sudden effort by the city to cancel their contribution, and after negotiation with City Manager Howard Chan, to reduce the contribution by ‘only’ three-quarters.

• RydeFree RT