Passengers wait at the Tysons Corner Metro station to board a Silver Line Metro train westbound to Reston during a morning commute on July 28. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

Metro warns that unless Washington-area jurisdictions increase their subsidy to the transit agency by more than 10 percent for the next fiscal year, subway riders could see cutbacks in service.

Metro officials have drafted a budget for the next fiscal year that includes a contribution of $892 million from the jurisdictions it serves — a 10.3 percent increase over the current subsidy — to help the transit system meet its operating costs.

In a spending plan to be presented this week to the Metro board’s finance committee, the agency’s budget staff anticipates rail ridership for the fiscal year that begins in July will be about the same as the current fiscal year.

That means, for the first time in several years, Metro is projecting no increase in fare revenue, while operating costs are rising, the agency’s financial staff said. As a result, Metro will need substantially more money from the eight counties and cities that help pay for transit operations, according to the budget proposal.

Metro increased fares this year, and the agency’s policy is to not raise prices in consecutive years.

Some board members already have balked at the idea of a large boost in subsidies. But if such an increase is not forthcoming, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said, “then there are some really difficult choices that the board is going to have to wrestle with. And that’s when you start talking about running trains less frequently.”

The potential consequences are detailed in a section of the 40-page budget proposal titled, “More Aggressive Cost Cutting Needed If Funding Is Not Available.”

Translation: Fewer trains.

During weekday rush hours (5 to 9:30 a.m. and 3 to 7 p.m.), trains would run every eight minutes instead of every six minutes on the Red, Orange, Green, Yellow and Silver lines, according to the proposed budget. Blue Line trains already run less frequently than trains on the other lines.

Budget documents note that the service reductions would cause more crowding on trains and platforms at “key locations,” including the Rosslyn and Metro Center stations.

During nonpeak hours on weekdays, and on Saturdays, the frequency of trains on all lines would be changed to every 15 minutes from the current 12, according to the proposed budget. On Sundays, trains would run every 20 minutes instead of 15.

“I think it’s a decision we might have to make, although I hope we don’t,” said Mortimer L. Downey, a former U.S. Department of Transportation official who represents the federal government on the Metro board.

If the subsidy total “winds up below what’s now proposed by any substantial degree, there are going to have to be some real service cuts,” Downey said. “Something is going to have to give. I just hope we don’t have to go there.”

The overall budget proposal for the next fiscal year — calling for $3.1 billion in spending on capital improvements and day-to-day operations — will be made public Monday and formally submitted Thursday to the board’s finance committee, officials said. The overall budget this fiscal year is $2.9 billion.

Metro’s board includes representatives from the eight local jurisdictions that chip in toward the operating budget: Montgomery, Fairfax, Arlington and Prince George’s counties, the District and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church.

In the current budget, the jurisdictions’ contribution to operating costs totals $809 million. Each jurisdiction’s share is based on how heavily the transit system is used in that locality.

In the current budget, the District’s portion is 38 percent; Prince Georges’s, 21 percent; Montgomery, 16 percent; Fairfax County, 14 percent; Arlington, 7 percent; Alexandria, 4 percent; Falls Church, 0.3 percent; and the city of Fairfax, 0.2 percent.

Three weeks ago, Metro’s chief financial officer, Dennis Anosike, floated the idea of a 15 percent increase in local subsidies, to $928.5 million, in the next fiscal year — a proposal quickly rejected by some members of the finance committee, including Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D).

“Suffice to say that there’s no way we’re going to absorb a subsidy increase at 15 percent,” Euille said at the Nov. 6 meeting. “That’s just not going to happen.” Another member, Michael Goldman, a transportation lawyer who represents Maryland, voiced “concern and trepidation” that day, calling the suggestion of $928.5 million in local subsidies “shocking.”

The committee urged Anosike to find ways to trim operating costs to allow for a less drastic increase in subsidies.

In an interview last week, Anosike said that since Nov. 6, his staff has lowered projected expenses in several ways, mainly by deferring certain improvements to Metro’s bus system, by proposing to turn over some Metrobus routes to local bus operators, by eliminating about 50 transit jobs that are vacant and by other “administrative efficiencies.”

The result is a proposed operating budget that calls for $892 million in subsidies instead of $928.5 million — an increase of 10.3 percent rather than 15 percent. How receptive the committee will be to the new figure remains to be seen.

This year’s $809 million contribution was 6 percent higher than the previous year’s.

“I sympathize with the members who also are officials in local jurisdictions,” said Downey, who is vice chairman of the finance committee. “If they’re arguing in their communities for more of a subsidy for Metro, then that’s in competition with the school budget and their other local activities. So they’ve got to make some tough choices.”

Of the $3.1 billion in proposed spending in the next fiscal year, $1.3 billion would be for capital improvements, funded largely with federal money and through bond issues. The operations side of the budget, $1.8 billion, is financed with revenue from fares, parking, advertising and other sources, as well as subsidies from the local jurisdictions.

Overall revenue is projected to decline from $946 million this fiscal year to $931 million in the fiscal year that begins in July, while expenses are projected to increase to $1.82 billion from the current year’s $1.75 billion.

The gap between revenue and expenses — $892 million — is what Metro’s budget officials want the local jurisdictions to fill.

In budget documents, transit officials blame stagnant rail ridership on several factors, including a decline in federal employment and contracting, a decrease in military personnel and the growth of telecommuting. But mainly they blame federal tax rules concerning employer contributions to workers’ commuting expenses.

In 2013, under Internal Revenue Service regulations, companies were allowed to set aside as much as $245 monthly from an employee’s pay, before taxes, if the worker wanted to use it for transit fares or parking. The parking allowance is now $250. But the fare benefit has dropped to $130 amid disputes on Capitol Hill over tax reform.

Metro officials say the policy makes driving more affordable and discourages the use of mass transit by long-distance commuters whose fares would exceed $130 a month.