‘Administrative fat’ or ‘amnesia’: How much should we spend on the MBTA?

                                                        

  LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER.....

ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON

MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON

ADVERTISEMENT

New from CommonWealth Beacon POLITICS: CommonWealth Beacon relaunches its Political Notebook feature with a trio of eye-catching items from Beacon Hill and beyond, including the next collision course between Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce honcho Jim Rooney over a rent control ballot question that’s left them divided.  GOVERNORS: While in Washington, DC, for a National Governors Association conference, Gov. Maura Healey opted not to attend a meeting and dinner hosted by the White House after President Trump, in her words, "completely politicized this." Katie Castellani has details for State House News Service.  OPINION: Charles River Regional Chamber president Greg Reibman laments Wellesley’s opposition to housing construction on a MassBay Community College parking lot, arguing that the proposal is a win-win-win for the town’s stated goals of more modest-priced housing, support for the community college, and preservation of open space.

‘Administrative fat’ or ‘amnesia’: How much should we spend on the MBTA?   February 23, 2026 By CommonWealth Beacon staff

More than a decade removed from the “Snowpocalypse” winter of 2015 that revealed massive problems at the MBTA, the T remains the region’s favorite punching bag.

Service has improved since then, and the agency is mostly back in good graces with federal overseers after earning a string of safety demerits. At the same time, the T’s spending has boomed, growing more than 60 percent over the past decade.

ADVERTISEMENT

But is that simply the cost of operating a top-notch transit system in a post-pandemic world? Or has Beacon Hill been hypnotized into accepting poor budget management at the MBTA?

This week on The Codcast, our guests debate that question and more. CommonWealth Beacon senior reporter Chris Lisinski moderates a discussion between Jim Aloisi, a veteran transit advocate who served as transportation secretary to Gov. Deval Patrick, and Charlie Chieppo, a senior fellow at the Pioneer Institute who has repeatedly called for stricter control of the T’s spending.

Aloisi contended that trimming the MBTA’s budget would amount to a form of “amnesia” after a period of deferred maintenance and a much smaller T workforce fueled a safety crisis and federal scrutiny.

“In the 21st century, you’ve got to pay people relatively decent wages, particularly in a system like ours and a region like ours, which has a relatively high cost of living, to keep and retain people,” Aloisi said.

Chieppo agreed with Aloisi on many points, but landed at a different conclusion. Transit may be a public good, he said, but “that isn’t a blank check.”

The T could still keep its service and reliability improvements while saving money if officials took a different approach to pensions or privatized some of its work around logistics, Chieppo argued.

“We all know if we spend any time around the T the layers of administrative fat at the T that don’t have anything to do with delivering service,” he said.

In this episode, Aloisi and Chieppo discuss the MBTA’s growing workforce (10:10), whether the heavy reliance on the surtax fulfills voter expectations (25:30), and what a revived fiscal oversight board might do differently than the current MBTA board (37:30).

LISTEN

More Context Another MBTA deficit is on the horizon. Did the state miss its chance for a more permanent fix? (January 2026)  ‘Red flags’ in budget worry MBTA Advisory Board (May 2023)  Federal directives raise management, budget, oversight questions at MBTA (June 2022)

Job Board ⭐ Director of Program and Network Engagement, Mass Mentoring Partnership ⭐ Treasury Manager, Massachusetts Housing Partnership ⭐ Program Director, Massachusetts Housing Partnership ⭐ Chief Financial & Operating Officer, Massachusetts Housing Partnership ⭐ Economic Development Director, City of Haverhill ⭐ Development Director, Neighbor to Neighbor VIEW ALL JOBS

More from CommonWealth Beacon IMMIGRATION: It’s been more than three weeks since both Gov. Maura Healey and the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus each unveiled major legislation to blunt the impact of aggressive federal immigration enforcement in Massachusetts. But with several complex proposals in play, it’s still unclear when the House and Senate will agree on a path forward or what it will entail, Chris Lisinski reports.  HOUSING SECRETARY: Ed Augustus will step down as the state’s housing secretary next week, making him the eighth member of Gov. Maura Healey’s cabinet to depart. He’ll be succeeded by Juana Matias, a former HUD official, one-term state representative, and past executive at MassINC, the nonprofit that publishes CommonWealth Beacon. Chris Lisinski has more.

What We're Reading INFLUENCERS: Top Democrats in Massachusetts including Gov. Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell are increasingly embracing social media influencers as friendly avenues to boost their visibility online. (The Boston Globe – paywall)  AUDIT: Auditor Diana DiZoglio made a bid directly to the state’s highest court to unjam her stalled probe of the Legislature, but now Attorney General Andrea Campbell wants justices to toss the suit. (WBUR)  EXCERPT: Attorney General Andrea Campbell has a message for the state auditor: Don't run to the high court without the AG's permission. In a court filing Thursday, Campbell asked the Supreme Judicial Court to toss out a lawsuit Auditor Diana DiZoglio filed last week. DiZoglio is looking to force the Massachusetts House and Senate to hand over documents as part of an audit of their inner workings. Massachusetts voters approved a ballot question last year to give DiZoglio the power to audit the Legislature. But lawmakers have resisted turning over records to her, and the Campbell so far has not agreed to take legal action against the Legislature on the auditor's behalf. In the latest court filing, Campbell argues that DiZoglio violated “settled law” when she bypassed the attorney general to file her legal challenge with the SJC. Campbell said her office is the “gatekeeper empowered to determine when, if ever, the Commonwealth’s intragovernmental legal disputes require judicial resolution.” “There would be no gate at all were mere disagreement with the Attorney General sufficient basis for a dissenting state official to initiate a lawsuit. Were such suits permissible, the Commonwealth, which has heretofore spoken with one voice in litigation, would be rendered a babel of voices with competing interests, many on the docket of this Court,” she said. DiZoglio, a former state lawmaker who has regularly clashed with legislative leaders, has repeatedly sought Campbell's approval to take the House and Senate to court or to appoint an independent special assistant attorney general to oversee a lawsuit forcing the Legislature to comply. In declining to approve legal action, Campbell claimed DiZoglio has not answered basic questions about the scope of her planned audit and the legal arguments she plans to use in a court action. Campbell has also questioned whether it's a breach of the state constitution for DiZoglio to audit the Legislature. Lawmakers contend any audit of their inner workings violates separation-of-powers principles under the state constitution. But DiZoglio pressed forward last week with her lawsuit without Campbell’s permission, arguing the attorney general “acted arbitrarily and capriciously, or scandalously” by declining to greenlight court action against the Legislature. In her court filing, DiZoglio said Campbell’s “repeated questions and irrelevant hypotheticals effectively obstructed” the auditor’s office's ability to obtain documents from the Legislature through litigation. The auditor’s lawsuit asks the SJC to order House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka and the clerks of both legislative branches to turn over budgets, past financial audits, monetary transactions and settlement agreements. DiZoglio's legal challenge also calls on the court to appoint a special assistant attorney general to the Office of the State Auditor to oversee further legal action. Campbell said in her filing that the attorney general’s office has a “longstanding policy” of rarely approving legal disputes between different parts of state government. BUSES: The city of Boston will keep funding fare-free travel on a trio of MBTA bus routes through June, though the longer-term outlook remains unclear. (GBH News)  MOULTON: US Rep. Seth Moulton, who is challenging US Sen. Ed Markey in a high-profile Democratic primary, said one of his top priorities is to abolish the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that's executed massive operations under President Trump. (New Bedford Light)  PROPERTY VALUES: A Beacon Hill townhome sold for $22 million, more than four times as much as Boston’s Assessing Department valued the property this year, raising questions about whether the most valuable properties are taxed fairly. (MassLive)

Published by MassINC

CommonWealth Beacon, 11 Beacon Street, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02108, United States