Seattle Times: Seattle’s Metro Transit Fears $100 Million Potential Shortfall; Service Cuts (WA)

From Seattle Times: 

Plummeting sales-tax revenues could leave Metro Transit with a $100 million funding gap and potentially "catastrophic" cutbacks in bus service next year, the agency warned Tuesday. Unless the Legislature agrees to authorize a local option motor-vehicle excise tax, King County officials said, the free-fall in retail sales will likely translate into a 20 percent cut in bus service.  The amount of lost money is equivalent to what it takes to provide daily bus service for 75,000 passengers a day, Metro reported Tuesday. King County Executive Ron Sims said that would potentially mean reducing service to early 1990s levels.  "It's huge. It's a body blow. It's nothing we ever conceived of," Metro Transit General Manager Kevin Desmond said moments before he briefed the Metropolitan King County Council on the implications of the bus agency's tumbling revenues.  Two-thirds of Metro's income comes from sales tax.