A financial storm is coming, and SEPTA’s umbrella just broke.

The SEPTA board Thursday dug deep into its rainy-day fund in adopting a $1.28 billion operating budget for the next 12 months. That left the transit agency without enough reserves to cover an anticipated $38 million deficit starting the middle of next year and much bigger deficits every year after that.

SEPTA approves $1.3 billion operating, $303 million capital budgets for FY2013

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s (SEPTA) board recently approved a $1.3 billion operating budget for fiscal-year 2013, up 3 percent compared with FY2012.