Transportation

MCTS Budget Picture Keeps Getting Worse

MCTS preparing for more cuts in coming years.

By Graham Kilmer - Dec 4th, 2025 05:34 pm

MCTS Bus. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) is preparing for its first major service cuts in years as its short-term budget picture worsens.

MCTS will cut service by 6% in 2026 to close a $9 million budget gap, MCTS President and CEO Steve Fuentes said Tuesday. The gap was originally $14 million, but the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors scraped together an additional $4.7 million, funding that MCTS cannot rely on the following year.

In 2027, MCTS will face a budget deficit between $18 million and $20 million, Fuentes told supervisors on the Committee on Transportation and Transit. It will be the first year since 2019 that MCTS creates a budget without the help of federal stimulus funds released during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fuentes said his agency will begin preparing for the 2027 budget in January. At the same time, the system will be managing the implementation of cuts and attempting to bring staffing in line with increasingly diminished bus service.

“It is a very fluid situation,” Fuentes said.

MCTS implemented a hiring freeze in the wake of a midyear deficit that caught the system by surprise and snowballed into a political controversy. Officials initially concealed the budget deficit from county supervisors and the Office of the Comptroller, but the magnitude of the gap and contract negotiations with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 998 forced the system to announce it publicly. Supervisors learned the transit system was over budget through media reports.

To shrink the deficit, the agency began spending down stimulus funding faster and announced service reductions. The reduced service led officials to temporarily suspend recruitment and stop hiring for vacant positions, Fuentes said. The new CEO was hired amidst the tumult.

MCTS recently released a plan to avoid cutting entire routes in 2026 using the funding from the budget amendment. Supervisors gave initial approval for the plan at the committee meeting Tuesday. The proposal will go before the full board later this month. MCTS is likely to continue to adjust service in response to rider feedback and budget realities throughout the year, Fuentes said.

“How we start in January, I would almost say with certainty that that’s not how we’re going to end in December,” Fuentes said.

Comments

snowbeer says:

December 5, 2025 at 7:37 am

Make the bus system more efficient, more comfortable for all. More people will use it, and reverse the death spiral it’s currently on. A business that needs more customers would never respond by making their product worse.

Cuts to service without attracting new riders just results in even less revenue until you eventually end up with a bare bones system like Waukesha.
samowen62 says:

December 5, 2025 at 8:58 am

And how many billions of interstate expansions are getting federal checks. This sucks.
jrockow says:

December 5, 2025 at 9:44 am

It ain’t just Milwaukee. Mass transit across the nation is in big trouble.
Seattle: $30 B (with a B) over the next 10 years.
Austin: 33 Million
Atlanta: $370 Million
Denver: $228 Million
If you want to see what a culture/society values, follow the money. Billions will continue to go into roads and highways, while less and less will go to mass transit until…Not sure where this is headed, but for people who can’t or won’t be able to afford owning a vehicle (fossil fuels, registration, insurance, etc.) it’s definitely going to be a rocky road.
Henry B says:

December 5, 2025 at 10:45 am

$1.8 BILLION for an interstate expansion while our transit system has a deficit of $9 million. Truly some out of whack priorities the state and federal levels.
KWH says:

December 5, 2025 at 1:26 pm

The people who depend on mass transit will be forced to go to one of the many used car lots in the city and purchase a sub-standard vehicle. They will drive without insurance or licenses until the car breaks down, crashes or is repossessed due to the predatory loan they used to purchase it with. Scott Walker is smiling, this is his legacy, no mass transit.
jmpehoski says:

December 5, 2025 at 8:28 pm

As someone dependent on mass transit due to health reasons, I am infuriated that supposedly nothing is being done to address the lax, entitled culture management of MCTS which is driving this once great system into the ground. Until this IMO incompetent management team took over, MCTS was one of the better systems in the nation. Their policies encourage fare evasion, IMO. Raising prices and the daily cap from $5 to $8 also angers me because it is those like me who has NEVER evaded a fare who are paying for the incompetence of MCTS management and the unwillingness of the County Board to do its duty and effectively manage or remove the current MCTS management and get the fare evasion until control. I said it once. I’ll say it again. This is a serious crime and the National Guard should be called in to make sure drivers accept fare from folks willing to pay–I have seen them tell folks “that’s ok. Just get on, brother,” and make sure these fare evaders, most of whom can afford to pay, either do so or get off the bus. So disgusting. But what can I expect? Americans chose to elect a convicted felon to the highest office in its land and we are all paying the price–those dependent on mass transit more so than others.
zx89 says:

December 6, 2025 at 6:16 am

I basically like the current policy with fare evasion. I don’t think anyone who isn’t causing trouble should be turned away. However, I do think there is some money left on the table in terms of fare “evasion” by people who wanted to pay. I’ll give some examples from the past year:

Scanner for the QR code on the phone app is being flaky, driver just tells me to get on. Right choice by the driver, don’t slow a bus full of people down for one fare. The QR reader is not awful but sometimes it can take a while to scan.

Some people going to summerfest from out of town get on the bus and try to pay with tap credit cards, doesn’t work, go to get back off and the bus driver tells them to just sit down. I hear them taking, they are sure that they read the bus supported credit cards. Probably looking at the webpage for the wrong system if they were from out of state.

A man headed to the airport who was visiting from Europe. No cash, He asked if he could tap his credit card. I said nope, so he tried to install the App, but could not install Umo with an EU phone, different App Store, approvals etc per region. I told him to just nicely ask the bus driver if it was ok and try to ride without paying. I hope he was able to enjoy a bus ride to the airport instead of calling a cab.

I tried to pay the fare for a friend who was riding with me and didn’t usually take the bus. I used to carry 10 paper tickets with me and could easily spot somebody one (and people used to carry cash more). I swear somewhere on the MCTS website they tell you to tell the driver if you want to pay for someone else, but they actually have no way to do that, so my friend just rode for free after a confusing conversation with the driver.

So, the Umo based fare system is relatively new, and I think it could be better. If there was an NFC option to pay on the phone, that seems more consistent than the flaky QR codes. I like not carrying another card. A lot of time the QR reader not working is my fault, i accidentally changed screens in the app, I’m holding it at a weird angle. The payment process could be better.

Open Loop payment (payment with the same methods that a retail store might take, credit, debit, google pay, etc) would clearly be an improvement and is the way transit is headed it seems. Would enabling that require all new fare boxes again?

However, how much money is left on the table here? Probably less than a million in people who wanted or tried to pay but couldn’t. With twenty million dollar deficits coming up, fare collection tweaks ain’t goona do it.
45 years in the City says:

December 9, 2025 at 11:39 am

When MCTS (finally) adopted technology (electronic fare cards, real time tracking), I was optimistic that public transit in Milwaukee would break away from the stigma of being only a service for those totally dependent (e.g.: choice of last resort). Its marketing also improved and tried to position MCTS as a service that was convenient and easy to use for so-called discretionary users.

COVID and its aftermath worked against efforts to improve the image and reputation of MCTS. It once again became perceived to be “transport tor the desperate”. It didn’t help that the first foray into technology (the old M-Card), was not user friendly – especially when it came to loading more value. The UMO/Wisgo system is an improvement, but as other comments have mentioned, it’s already behind the state of the art – most notably its inability to accept credit/debit cards on board.

Last but not least, the management turnover (about which much has been written) was a major contributor to the mess we have currently.

Notwithstanding, I remain an optimistic daily rider and wish Mr. Fuentes good luck.

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