THE MBTA’S OVERSIGHT BOARD is running out of options to pare back spending in the coming fiscal year.
The T wants to balance its fiscal 2018 budget without touching $187 million expected to be provided by the Legislature. To do that, the T has estimated it needs to find $42 million in cuts plus another $5 million in spending reductions to offset plans to hire approximately 54 new people in transit operations.
Two weeks ago, T officials urged the Fiscal and Management Control Board to adopt a series of measures to reduce overall spending on operations by $47 million, including halting weekend commuter rail (projected savings of $10 million), paring back paratransit service to the geographic area required by the Americans with Disabilities Act ($7 million savings), and privatizing or using the threat of privatization to wring $28 million in savings out of bus repair garages.
Gov. Charlie Baker has already taken the elimination of weekend commuter rail service off the table. The Fiscal and Management Control Board indicated on Monday that it is inclined to kill the paratransit service cut. And there appears to be growing consensus on the board that the T needs to spend more than $5 million on adding workers to the operations department.
At Monday’s meeting of the control board, Brian Lang, one of the directors, filed a motion to take the paratransit cuts off the table. He said he had been moved by the testimony of the elderly and disabled who would be affected by the cutback.
Joseph Aiello, chair of the control board, suggested putting Lang’s motion on hold temporarily to give the T and members of the disabled community a chance to come up with alternative spending cuts in The Ride program by April 10. Lang said he considered Aiello’s amendment a friendly one, and voted unanimously with the other board members to approve it.
The board’s attitude toward the bus maintenance privatization initiatives is hard to read. Business groups, who have formed the FixOurT Coalition, testified in support of privatization on Monday, while the machinists union that would be most affected strenuously objected.
Mike Vartabedian, the area director of the union, told the control board his members are willing to negotiate wage and work rule concessions to avoid privatization of their jobs. The Carmen’s Union, the T’s largest union, negotiated such an agreement in December. Vartabedian said T officials so far have refused to sit down and talk with union officials.
Jeffrey Gonneville, the T’s chief operating officer, urged the board to approve an extra $5 million to hire more staff in the operations department at the agency. He detailed 54 new hires that he said were needed. Board members asked for a lot more details on how many workers would actually be added, but one board member, Monica Tibbits-Nutt, said she was skeptical $5 million in additional spending on new workers would be sufficient.
“It doesn’t seem like this is enough,” she said.
Gonneville acknowledged he had initially asked that more employees be added, but said the $5 million request should be enough for now to start building out the operations department.
The MBTA wants to use all of its $187 million appropriation from the Legislature for longer-term investments in the transit agency. It doesn’t appear that will be possible in fiscal 2018, given the desire not to implement service cuts.
Steven Poftak, a member of the control board, noted he and his fellow members have been trying to decide how quickly the agency’s backlog of state-of-good-repair projects can be eliminated. The current draft of the board’s strategic plan calls for what he calls a 15-year burnoff, but some advocates are pressing to do it in 10 or possibly even eight years. Poftak said that kind of turnaround will require more money for capital investments, and a lot of that money will have to come from the legislative appropriation. Poftak urged T officials to give the board more options for spending cuts, saying he felt constrained with the current options on the table. (CLARIFICATION: Following the publication of this story, Poftak clarified the board’s view on the burnoff rate and the view of advocates.)
The MBTA should be taking some of that $187 million expected from the Legislature and investing in preventing fare evasion starting with the most cost-effective improvements first. There is nothing more frustrating than shelling out the fare while a couple of dozen or more passengers hitch a ride for free. Either everyone pays or no one should pay.
An understandable sentiment. But transit agencies often find that the cost of preventing fare evasion is greater than the fares that would be collected.
Well, that’s entirely possible. I’ve seen as many people paying their fares as evading their fares and the fare evaders end up with the seats because they know how to rush in through the open rear door. Why should they get the seats while schmucks like me shell out our hard earned money only to stand or worse sit among obnoxious non-paying passengers joking about how they’re riding for nothing?