Tame MBTA beast before feeding it
a Boston Herald editorial
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Tame MBTA beast before feeding ita Boston Herald editorial |
reprinted in BHI's NewsLink, Vol. 3, No. 3, Spring 1999
Before lawmakers hand over 20 percent of the state's sales tax revenues to feed the beast that the MBTA has become, they ought to take a careful look at The Beacon Hill Institute's tough new analysis of the agency's many problems.
While much attention has focused on the institute's proposal for doubling MBTA fares - a move which is not only politically unpalatable, but likely self-defeating -it's the institute's exploration of the T's spending habits that is worth a long, hard look.
According to the Suffolk University-based think tank, the T had the highest wages and administrative costs of nine urban transit systems, and could save nearly $60 million a year merely by bringing its operations to the same level of efficiency as its peers. Privatizing elements of its operations, a one-time goal of the Weld administration, would certainly help costs, according to the report. But what privatization efforts weren't stymied by the state auditor, were abandoned when Gov. Paul Cellucci signed a five-year give-away-the-store contract with the Carmen's Union in the midst of his gubernatorial race. That deal alone, providing for 18 percent pay hikes, will guarantee the system remains one of the most high-cost in the nation.
There is no reason - save lack of political will - that, say, a delivery person on the T payroll should be paid $21.85 an hour, when the Baltimore transit system pays someone in the same pay grade $14.38 or that a “general helper” for the T should get $20 an hour when even New York pays only $16. This is fiscal lunacy.
The one point on which lawmakers and the institute report agree is that the T must be put on a forward-funded budget, just as every other state agency. But David Tuerck, executive director of the institute, also notes that it's time to consider the level of taxpayer subsidy too. Merely diverting 20 percent of sales tax revenues (currently $600 million a year, but growing with the strong economy), doesn't solve the problem. What it could end up doing is simply encouraging more of the same.
Reprinted with permission of the Boston Herald. This editorial appeared in the newspaper's May 25, 1999 edition.
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