The MBTA board under new chair Tom Glynn is going to be different, judging from the way three subcommittees of the board handled themselves on Thursday.

Right from the start, board members were peppering T staffers with questions, demanding more information, and offering suggestions on ways to improve operations.

It was a marked contrast from the board under Betsy Taylor, who Gov. Maura Healey replaced along with two other members of the seven-person panel on April 21.

Under Taylor, the board let T staff set the agenda. Members asked relatively few questions, rarely pressed T staffers on the spate of problems facing the agency, and showed little curiosity about MBTA operations.

At the first subcommittee meeting on Thursday, which dealt with the T’s budget, Glynn went way off script, asking about the status of funding for repairs to escalators and elevators, the budget for MBTA police, and how much of the T’s debt is left over from what the transit authority absorbed in connection with the Big Dig.

T officials promised to get back to Glynn on the first two questions, but the answer to the third – on Big Dig debt — was $1 billion. NearLy a fifth of the MBTA’s $5.56 billion in debt is related to transit mitigation projects the T was ordered to carry out to allow the Big Dig to move forward.

Eric Goodwine, another new appointee to the MBTA board and the chair of the finance subcommittee, said at the end of the meeting that an hour wasn’t long enough. He indicated he was in favor of extending the length of subcommittee meetings to one and a half hours. Glynn and fellow new board member Tom McGee, a former state senator and former mayor of Lynn, indicated they were with him.

At the planning and workforce development subcommittee meeting, the board members appeared frustrated at the slow pace of hiring for bus drivers and other positions. Chanda Smart urged T human resource officials to start thinking more radically.

She said the current $7,500 sign-on bonus was good, but not enough to sway people struggling financially in the Boston area. She also pounced on a T requirement that job applicants must have a driver’s license, even for positions that don’t require any driving.

“If that’s a disqualifier, we’re missing a lot of talent,” she said.

Robert Butler, the board’s union representative, said maybe the T should pay drivers more for working at night. He also questioned whether human resources personnel should be working remotely.

Thomas Koch, the chair of the subcommittee and the mayor of Quincy, ended the meeting by telling the T officials: “You guys have some homework to do.”

Patrick Lavin, the state’s new transportation safety czar, sat in on the meeting of the safety, health, and environment subcommittee. Lavin knows the T pretty well, having played a key role in a safety review of the T conducted in 2019 by a panel of three experts.

Glynn asked Lavin what he thought about a debate currently taking place in the Legislature – whether oversight of safety issues at the T should remain with the Department of Public Utilities, be transferred to the inspector general’s office, or be moved to a new independent agency.

“I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen with the DPU,” Lavin said.

Lavin also schooled T staffers on how they should respond to the board’s questions about safety data, how to break down the information to get at issues that need to be addressed.

Glynn thanked one of the T safety staffers for his patience in answering the subcommittee’s questions. “We’re trying to be a little more engaged,” Glynn said.

BRUCE MOHL

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FROM AROUND THE WEB

BEACON HILL

State Auditor Diana DiZoglio accused the Senate of trying to “weaponize” the budget process by proposing a much smaller increase in funding for her office, which is seeking to audit the Legislature, than other state agencies. (Boston Herald)  

A poll conducted by the conservative Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance suggests voters don’t want to see changes to the tax cap law passed in 1986, though a quarter of those surveyed were unsure whether changing the obscure law was a good idea or not. (Boston Herald) 

The Massachusetts Senate will begin paying some students doing summer fellowships this summer, making moves to join the movement away from unpaid internships. (Boston Globe)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

The Boston Planning and Development Agency approves converting the Comfort Inn in Dorchester into housing for the homeless. (Dorchester Reporter)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

A Boston Public Health Commission report lays out the startling differences in income and life expectancy in Boston neighborhoods just two miles apart. The life expectancy of someone living in the Back Bay is 23 years longer than someone living in Nubian Square. (WBUR)

ELECTIONS

Dominick Pangallo’s campaign for mayor of Salem against Neil Harrington is getting outside help from a political action committee affiliated with the Environmental League of Massachusetts. (Salem News)

A tie vote for a Select Board seat in West Stockbridge turns a bit ugly. (Berkshire Eagle)

EDUCATION

The Worcester School Committee and the Educational Association of Worcester reached a tentative agreement on a teachers’ contract, landing on the benefits package about a week after the teachers held a no-confidence vote in city leadership. (MassLive)

The family of a 12-year-old Middleboro student has decided to take legal action after the student was sent home from school for wearing shirts that said “There are only two genders” and “There are censored genders.” (The Enterprise of Brockton)

IMMIGRATION

Haitian immigrants flow into Boston with its overburdened shelter system. (GBH)

TRANSPORTATION

State Transportation Secretary Gina Fiandaca helped pave the way for her former brother-in-law, Bill Bratton, to get a $900,000 no-bid contract from the MBTA to develop a performance management system. (Boston Globe) 

The MBTA’s chief financial officer tells its board that the agency could face a budget gap of $542 million by 2028. (Boston Herald) 

Somerville extends a free taxi voucher program for low-income residents to go to the doctor or grocery store. (WBUR)

MEDIA

CNN leadership is under fire for hosting this week’s “town hall” with former president Donald Trump, who used the primetime platform to steamroll over questions while continuing to insist, incorrectly, that the 2020 election was rigged, and called a woman who just prevailed in lawsuit against him for sexual battery and defamation “a whack job.” (Washington Post)