Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Governor’s special commission on the MBTA has come back with a plan to cut costs. One needs to parse the Globe’s article on this rather carefully, not taking its lede too literally: One on hand, it does indeed call for reform before creating additional revenue streams. On the other hand:
“There are fundamental management practices and operational practices that really need to be put in place first and foremost,” said Jane Garvey, a panelist and former administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. “We certainly acknowledge that chronic underinvestment has been an issue, but we need to right the ship first.”
In retrospect, perhaps it’s a good thing that Beverly Scott left when she did. I cannot imagine her facing questions about why the T didn’t use the very basics of best practices: Finding out what stuff to use to to de-ice the train tracks, in the midst of a historic crisis. Or to hear about the deplorable condition of new trains upon delivery, right out of the package, as it were:
“In my 44 years on the railroad, I have never seen equipment, coaches or locomotives plagued with defects, mechanical and structural, after initial entry into service,” [Transport Workers Union chief Thomas] Murray told the joint committee, which was in its second day of hearings into the MBTA’s troubled operations.
Perhaps she also didn’t want to answer for the plague (ha) of absenteeism forcing bus routes to just go poof, disappear, miss their appointed rounds:
The Herald reported yesterday that absent employees were responsible for most of the 39,937 “missed trips” in 2014 on the MBTA’s 178 bus routes.
Most of the nearly 4,500 missed bus trips in August were due to absent workers. Only 455 missed trips that month were due to broken or unavailable buses, data shows.
The Herald’s review also found that drivers who didn’t show up for work were to blame for 72 percent of the nearly 7,417 missed trips this past February. While MBTA officials have complained of mechanical problems in February, less than 9 percent of bus trips dropped that month were due to equipment failures.
Doesn’t give you much confidence for throwing more money at the agency, does it? “Crazy”, maybe? Can it be that I’ve come to partially agree with Ron Mariano?
Well OK. But I’d really like to know why this hasn’t been done before. What we’re seeing now is Big Dig Culture II: It Ate The Trains. No one wants to — no one has ever wanted to — take responsibility for the T; no one wants to be accountable. In fact, our legislators have devised a system where no one is. Legislators may have wanted to wash their hands of the T because either they think it’s hopeless, or they genuinely believe that more legislative interference in a big agency would lead to a probation-department-style featherbedding and favors. Don’t blame us! The Governor doesn’t want the blame either — it’s too much trouble, I guess. And riders and taxpayers are naturally resistant to being asked to pay more. And given what we know, one can only surmise that the actual MBTA board has been absolutely out to lunch … for a while now.
There still remains no single line of accountability for the T’s performance. And as of yet, there is no trust-building apparatus that would give the T the feedback it needs to run better, while displaying to the public and politicians that it’s making progress. So how do we get from here to there?
Beyond a report with a 30-day deadline, we need an audit — actually a state of continuous audit and Best Practices input for the MBTA. Please, not from the Auditor’s Office. Suzanne Bump is too busy making sure poor people don’t eat too much. At least dating back to the DiNucci days, the office has never distinguished itself in scope or ambition or hotshot professionalism. And it’s run by an elected politician, which is inherently a joke, regardless of the individual’s good intentions. The IG’s office doesn’t really seem up to the task either — what do they do exactly? And the Pioneer Institute and Mass. Taxpayers have obvious ideological prejudices that have nothing to do with getting our asses to work on time — they’re not going to have the answers.
A real solution — especially one that includes necessary expansions — is going to cost money. I’ll support whatever it takes to get Bob DeLeo, Ron Mariano and Charlie Baker to the point where they can say “yes” to a revenue package that puts the T on solid footing and strengthens the state’s economic ties.
But we won’t accept “never” for an answer. For at least the last 15 years, that’s what we’ve heard. It’s not just the lack of monetary support from the legislature that galls. It’s the neglect, the lack of interest, the foggy diffusion of responsibility, the sense that it’s always Somebody Else’s Problem and therefore invisible. And the public despairs that anything will ever change, that we’ll ever experience anything like the promise of our transit system — fast, reliable, clean, consistent — instead of this crippled, maddening jalopy whose bumpy ride we endure every day.
Stop giving us the Roundabout. Let’s get to Yes.
Christopher says
…or at least it should regarding administration. The General Court also needs to get involved to appropriate money and if they want to reorganize with an eye on reform that’s great too. Given how many districts the MBTA covers, especially when commuter rail is included, I remain surprised that there is not a solid voting bloc in the GC supporting the T. The independent agency model doesn’t seem to work and I would prefer a combination of civil service and advice/consent for staffing these agencies. The Auditor I think should be involved, but I don’t think the swipe at her was necessary.
Charley on the MTA says
of the Auditor. Well let’s see what she said about EBT payments — basically it’s not much $, but gosh people are talking about it and it’s a political hot potato, so let’s help out:
Hm. And so getting in to that political pig-pile led to people being denied food that they should have been eligible for. Food. For poor people.
Anyway, that has not much to do with the MBTA. I would just say that the T is at a scale that I don’t think the auditor’s office has ever grappled with.
But hey, prove me wrong.
Trickle up says
yet he’s the guy who freighted the T with Big Dig debt.
That is utterly unsupportable. It is the elephant in the room. Until we address it the T will continue to fail.
SomervilleTom says
Yes, Charlie Baker originated the catastrophe of saddling the T with Big Dig debt. Yes, that is unsustainable and must be reversed.
Given that Charlie Baker is now Governor, it seems to me that framing this as an opportunity for Governor Baker to make a desperately-needed change is more likely to be embraced by the Baker administration than framing it as punishment for a past misdeed (which will surely make the pill much harder to swallow).
It also needs to be said, again, that the legislature — overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats — had ample opportunity to correct this mistake and chose to instead ignore it. The Big Dig debt was clearly identified as a major issue in the 2009 Alessandro report, and the legislature passed at least one “major reform” in response — and did absolutely nothing about the root cause of MBTA insolvency (it is insolvent, and has been since 2009).
It seems to me that our priority should be to fix the problem, and for once put partisan politics aside long enough to do so. Remaining fixated on punishing Charlie Baker is cutting off our nose to spite our face.
We MUST get the burden of Big Dig debt off of the MBTA and back onto the Commonwealth of MA where it properly belongs.
jconway says
Albeit, with a different measure of hypocrisy.
The myth of Taxachusetts is pernicious, endemic, and entirely perpetuated in a bipartisan fashion. I live in the most taxed state and the second most corrupt state in the union, I know my tax dollars are being fleeced and given away to the rich-it’s out in the open here. Massachusetts has the 26th highest tax burden in the country, not even in the top half of the 50 states.
It also has the best public education system according to most rankings, which shows that our citizens are willing to pay for good schools in their nice suburbs with their high property taxes. It’s time those same citizens start paying for the T, even, and I know this is a radical idea even in Massachusetts, they don’t use it themselves. Because everyone will benefit directly from the T. The T makes the city more livable, and thus, a more desirable place to relocate for work. If we want to compete with the tech hubs in San Francisco, the growing tech presence in Chicago, and the Innovation Island Bloomberg built in NYC with their Ivy League schools-it’s time we compete with them on transit.
We want to lure the best policy minds away from DC, which apparently is where most UMASS policy and Kennedy School grads go (both schools use it as a selling point-not staying in Massachusetts)-then we should compete with that city on transit.
We want to lure innovative and creative folks from warm places like California or Austin, we should reject its car centric model and embrace sustainable mass transit (that works in the winter). There is no reason our affordable housing problem can’t be solved by denser suburbs linked to mass transit hubs-just like Portland has done. It’s time to bust the myth, and start busting heads and hauling ass.
Christopher says
…Baker’s saying during that press conference that we always start with them premise that people are taxed too much. I guess we’ll never know for sure, but I have a hard time imagining Coakley saying the same.
SomervilleTom says
No doubt Governor Baker panders differently than Ms. Coakley might have.
Mr. DeLeo has already said the same. In my view, Mr. Baker merely accepted Mr. DeLeo’s invitation to pander to their shared base of self-centered “independent” voters too greedy or short-sighted to think beyond bumper-stickers and slogans.
The fact remains that Mr. DeLeo is the obstacle to raising taxes, and Ms. Coakley would have no more success than Governor Patrick or Governor Baker in changing that.
stomv says
According to this data from taxfoundation.org, MA’s property taxes are the 29th highest burden in the country, not even in the top half of the 50 states.
scott12mass says
How many of the states above Mass have no state income tax (ex Fla and NH)?
jconway says
And a progressive political movement should be focused on grassroots education and organizing to change the parameters of the debate, rather than simply adapting to existing ones. It’s certainly an uphill battle though, even my lunch bucket relatives voted against the gas indexing and feel ‘we are the most taxed state around’, no matter how many times I point out they are wrong or how often my Illinois fiancee treats MA like we treat NH when she visits and shops here.
centralmassdad says
Some are, sure, but I don’t think that most do.
I think that a majority of voters are, however, opposed to taxes that are obviously pissed away on nonsense. , which is what happens in MA. And there is really no indication at all from the establishment that they give even a single shaving cream can about that state of affairs. Indeed, the indications are the opposite: that they like this state of affairs and will make sure it continues. Hence the zero fallout from the Probation thing, and the “that’s not illegal, that’s how politics works” response, that assumes that “good government” has not advanced in any significant way since the Andrew Jackson administration.
Why would anyone support any increase of general revenues, when we KNOW that a significant chunk of it will be spent to fund a patronage job by some friend of a legislator on the right committee?
jconway says
What nonsense are you referring to?
The actual percentage that patronage wastes from our budget has to be small, small enough that eliminating it completely won’t fix the structural deficits our low revenue stream persistently cause. This is why cuts tend to fall on the poor, the mentally ill, the elderly, and school children. We can cut every last patronage job and it won’t be enough to avoid balancing the budget on the backs of those folks.
Like tort reform, it’s a good idea on it’s own, but let’s not pretend that corruption is the sole reason our state is in a fiscal hole. It’s barely making a dent, whereas our failure to adjust or tax policies to our current economic reality and away from the 1980s is a big reason it’s a problem.
29th in the country on property taxes, 26th in the country overall, and by some metrics one of the least corrupt states in the union. This doesn’t excuse DeLeo and other cronies, but he is not Mike Madigan corrupt, a man who has personally been made a millionaire at least 40 or 50 times over by defrauding his state. He is no Rahm Emmanuel-shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars to Magic Johnson and other cronies.
8 relatives on state payroll maybe is what, $3 million worth of abuse? That is about a day or so of MBTA operation on the red line alone. We gotta start raising revenues. I am not excusing our local corruption, I am saying it is not on the scale that you and others who routinely send Republican tax cutters to the Corner Office think it is.
jconway says
I don’t think you are arguing DeLeo is the cause of the deficit, but the cause of voter apathy and apprehension towards raising needed revenue. On that I think we can agree, and the sooner the MA grassroots state party can dissociate itself from DeLeo, the better. Senate President Rosenberg has had a lot of chutzpah challenging the status quo and trying to limit the Speakers hold on Beacon Hill. Hopefully Baker proves to be an ally and not pull the Weld-Bulger bait and switch for a new generation.
centralmassdad says
Then you have to be prepared to maintain political support for it.
That means you have to be super-vigilant about this stuff, period.
If you’re not, you are left with “Pay a little more, we will only steal a little.” and must contend with the political fallout of the streams of “isolated” incidents in which State Employee X is caught working as a consultant in his old job, at a higher rate of pay than he made while working in his old job, while also collecting a pension for his “retirement” from his old job.
As it stands, those stories are met with a shrug by nearly the entire legislature. Why would you expect to get voters to believe in good government if you can’t even pretend to want to deliver it?
Trickle up says
Six sixes.
Peter Porcupine says
According to reports, the T has $2.2 billion in unspent maintenance and construction funds. Perhaps they found it under the rock where Aloisi hid it, if it is the old unspent ARRA money.
Never mind the millions blown on employees not showing up.
Baker’s cunning plan is working already to sweat out the waste before signing more blank checks.
centralmassdad says
There was a legislature that could have just, you know, paid for the Big Dig, rather than hiding from the Big Dig.
It was pretty obvious from the start that all of the financing schemes stemmed from the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to raise taxes to pay for a huge infrastructure project.
The T hasn’t been funded for decades because Massachusetts Democrats don’t want to fund it. Period. Pretending that the MBTA situation is a result of some Republican policy choice in an exercise in propaganda. Worse, it is self-defeating propaganda, since it gives people like you reason to continue to support elected officials who support starving public transportation of necessary funding, while pretending you are doing otherwise.
rcmauro says
as I can’t confirm it myself not having the requisite resident longevity.
Isn’t there a pretty big segment of either (1) the Massachusetts population (2) the Massachusetts wealthy landowning developer population
…that would prefer a transportation landscape that is passenger car-based and not Boston-centric? See convenience incentives and shorter commutes for group 1. Financial incentives as well for some in group 1. Major financial incentives for group 2 (office parks and McMansions galore)…
nopolitician says
The coverage of the report seems curiously worded, as though it is trying to manufacture some outrage. For example, the Springfield Republican article says this:
Why would you include vacation time in a sentence like that? Can they not separate vacation time from sick time? Or was it included to make it sound more scandalous? Is short and long-term disability included in those figures? What about holiday time? Or FMLA?
If someone gets 5 weeks vacation, then why include those 25 days in the total? And if there are another 12 holidays, then that reduces the average down to 21 days – which is still fairly high on average. Is it really possible that employees are taking an average of three weeks sick time, with some people getting more? Because that doesn’t make sense – I found one union contract for the MBTA.
For vacations, it reads like this:
1 year: 1 week
2-5 years: 2 weeks
5-10 years: 3 weeks
10-20 years: 4 weeks
20+ years: 5 weeks
That is a bit on the generous side on the upper end, but not wildly so.
They get 12 sick days per year which accumulate indefinitely. That is a bit generous, but there does not appear to be a long term disability leave – it is done with a “sick leave bank” which requires union members to donate sick days.
They get 3 bereavement days per year, can only be used for death of an immediate family member. Again, that is pretty standard in the working world.
They get 1 personal leave days per year. Again, nothing to see there.
They get 12 holidays. That isn’t overly generous. They do get Bunker Hill day, but not the day after Thanksgiving or Evacuation Day.
So how can the average employee be missing 58 days per year? It doesn’t add up, and the fact that it is presented that way makes me suspicious.
centralmassdad says
5 weeks. I wouldn’t call that “a little generous.” I would call it crazy generous, especially when holidays and sick time accumulate indefinitely.
That pretty much means that if you are senior, and don’t use your sick time, you can take close to two months off every year, and still have holidays.
That’s nuts.
nopolitician says
I’m no benefits manager, but I think that five weeks is only a little generous for a 20+ year employee of a larger company. I have been in the workforce at various small to medium companies for over 20 years, and beyond my first job, at a minimum I have received 3 weeks vacation at each place. If I had stayed at a single company I would have five weeks by now. If I had taken one job in particular, I’d have six weeks. I have seen the upper vacation years of service at 25 or 30 years though, so the MBTA is a little low on that end.
Sick time is not to be used when you are not sick. Sure, people may take a mental health day or two here and there, but anyone taking 12 sick days every year should be questioned. The problem there is that they don’t seem to offer long-term disability, so that means for the people who get really sick, they’re just screwed. A better plan would be to give 5 expiring sick days per year but given an allowance for longer-term illnesses (such as cancer treatment or an appendix removal).
I can agree with you that if there is no way to limit sick day usage, then 12 sick days plus 5 weeks of vacation is unreasonable, especially if you’re allowed to first bank the sick time, and then take more than 12 sick days per year with no repercussions.
12 holidays is relatively standard too. Again, I have never worked at a company that didn’t offer the same set of holidays (except Bunker Hill Day).
jconway says
Sorta like tort reform as the key to lowering health care costs. Maybe torts are excessive, maybe MBTA benefits are too generous, but either way they are maybe 5-10% of the costs. Particularly when the MBTA is facing a massive revenue shortfall, has had debt piled on top of it, and is in dire need of basic capital repairs and improvements-it isn’t really a question of waste, fraud, and abuse. Cut all the fat you want-there is barely any real meat left on the bone.
centralmassdad says
If you want to use the winter meltdown as Exhibit A for the results of poor infrastructure investment, it is good for the argument if the disrupted service can be traced to failure to invest in modern equipment, and poor for the argument if the disruptions are attributable to people missing work.
I will just disagree with nopolitician, as I think that 5 weeks vacation PLUS unlimited sick time (sure it isn’t supposed to be used except for sick time. sure.) plus 12 holidays is about as generous a “paid time off” plan as you will find anywhere, public sector or private.
nopolitician says
When you describe it in misleading way, then yes it is. However they don’t get unlimited sick time, and the five weeks is for employees who are there for more than 20 years. Plus there are 11 federal holidays, so 12 is not overly generous.
SomervilleTom says
A great many workers in just about every sector weren’t able to get to work this winter, I think we’d have to compare MBTA “absenteeism” to the experience of other Boston-area employers.
I’d like to know a great deal more than we get from a drive-by hit-piece about those absences. How many of those drivers depend on the MBTA (that was shut down!) to get to work? How many of those drivers were unable to get through the massive traffic jams that clogged the entire city for days?
Perhaps I’m jaded by living with a German professional for fifteen years, but I’m with nopolitician — the MBTA vacation plan strikes me as reasonable. It is certainly not excessive by European standards, nor is it excessive in comparison to plans offered by established Boston-area biotech companies.
nopolitician says
There appears to be a smear campaign now being waged. Today’s revelation: the MBTA did not spend all the money it was alloted for capital expenses.
So now the agency is being characterized as being staffed by lazies who take 60 days off per year on average, managed by a bunch of incompetents who can’t even spend the budget they are given. So why give them any more? Hell, we should be cutting their budget, right?
centralmassdad says
The Democrats in the Legislature will conduct hearings to review the findings of this report, during which the MBTA can make its own case.
It can’t be true that they haven’t been spending their capital budget, though, can it? The article doesn’t make clear if these funds aren’t being spent at all, or are being spent not on capital but rather on operating expenses. It is probably the case that the operating budget is so thin that they use capital money to plug the hole– typical deferred maintenance situation. And if that’s true, then the reporter is a nitwit who has no clue about anything.
TheBestDefense says
the next phase in implementation of a Baker/MTF agenda.
There was never any doubt in my mind that the real purpose of the study commission was to start a political narrative to bolster a series of policies long advocated by Baker and his allies. It is certainly what I would have done in that situation. If you start the conversation and choose the grounds on which the arguments will be made, then you are half way home to winning the policy changes you always wanted.
Baker knows what is wrong with MBTA finances. He was an architect of the mess. He needs a string of stories that help him sell many of his old policies. Problem: the T workers/union are bad; benefits re too high (I agree on this part when it comes to retirement). Solution: crack down on miscreant workers (and no doubt there are many) and privatize.
That is the bulk of the “reform” he wants before “revenue”. Things will get weird when that part of the agenda goes before the lege, as most members don’t have the stones to repeal or suspend the Pacheco law (and I don’t think the lege should, BTW) and don’t have any idea what else to do. So they will likely embrace the rest of the Baker agenda on MBTA labor issues.
Baker’s nuclear option here is to call for MBTA receivership if he sets specific goals for savings and the lege does not meet them.
Everyone should go back and read the MTF report on the MBTA. There is a lot of good stuff in it. There is also a lot of ideological posturing. Everyone needs to know this stuff to understand how things will move forward.
dasox1 says
It adds up to many weeks of unexcused absences on average. By way of example, using nopolitician’s numbers, a 5 year employee gets 3 weeks of vacation. That’s reasonable; 15 days. Let’s assume the employee also uses all 12 sick days, 3 bereavement days, and 1 personal day. 15+12+3+1=31 days. Holidays aren’t “missed days” of work; so the 14 Holidays are on top of the 31 days, and don’t count in the 58 days (if you believe the Springfield paper). So, if the numbers are right, it sounds like the workers are missing in the range of 5 weeks/year on top of vacation, bereavement, six days, etc. The point of the report is that accounts for a lot of late or cancelled service. Having said that, I agree with jcon, that this may not be the largest issue the Ts facing, but it is an issue if it is hurting service.
elias says
I’d love to see some of these strict “time off” metrics applied to both houses of the state legislature, might be informative.
I think the current report is a license for the Governor to play to his base denouncing the crony culture at the MBTA, the General Court’s default position on the T has been to do nothing, it’s worked for them before and it will be their go to this time. Nothing in short will be done until the Red Line Caves In and I suspect even then NOTHING will be done.
My response?
Look for a job where I can walk to work.
Anyone Hiring in Arlington?
Elias Nugator
http://www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com