The new MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board is learning – or at least confirming – that there is nothing simple when dealing with financial issues for the nation’s fourth-largest public transit system.

On the same day the board voted that fares can be increased as much as 10 percent every two years, in apparent contradiction of senators who say the intent was to make 5 percent the max, the panel heard testimony about T workers and overtime, including one foreman who so far this year has earned in excess of $315,000 by working more than 2,600 hours in overtime. Allow us to help the board along here: The financial issues and the outrage are connected.

Many believe the chronically crippled T is chronically underfunded and new revenue is needed not only to expand the service under contractual obligations but just to keep the damn thing running. With lawmakers as well as Gov. Charlie Baker increasingly reluctant to pour money into the system without commitments to change, fare hikes for users is one of the few avenues available to officials to bring in revenue.

But with the board discussing fare increases and overtime horrors at the same meeting, T users feel like they’re being kicked in the shins.

According to T Chief Administrator Brian Shortsleeve, a foreman on the maintenance of way crew charged with maintaining the tracks worked 2,648 hours so far this year to nearly quadruple his $85,000 base salary. Averaged out over 52 weeks if the employee took no vacation (and how newsworthy would that be at the T?), that equals a shade over 51 hours per week over and above the regular work hours. That’s near-Herculean for anyone and brings up questions of safety on the aging system.

“Is this case an anomaly?” asked board member Lisa Calise, as she suggested an audit should be undertaken.

But her answer came pretty quickly. MBTA employees had a higher rate of $100,000 earners than the executive branch of state government. According to Shortsleeve, nearly a quarter of the T’s 6,500 workers made six figures this year compared to 7.7 percent of the 44,000 employees in the executive branch. At least 27 made more than $200,000 and the singled-out foreman actually had at least one fellow worker join him in the $300,000 club.

After that, the board moved onto “other business,” which included consideration of the fare hike. But as anyone who pays $75 for a monthly Charlie Card pass or as much as $362 for a commuter rail pass would tell the board, it is not disconnected business. You can’t talk about one issue without confronting the other.

In trying to find loose change to help pay for the Green Line extension, the T cut about $1.9 million in funding for public art. According to Shortsleeve, the T has paid out more than $75 million in overtime this year. The MBTA wants to hit riders with a 10 percent fare increase. Can they connect the dots?

JACK SULLIVAN 

BEACON HILL

Gov. Charlie Baker talks about his first year in office and the year ahead in sit-downs with the Globe, Herald, Keller@Large, and the Springfield Republican, which also takes the pulse of political observers on the his tenure so far.

Hollywood claimed $58 million in film tax credits from the state in 2014, the highest amount since the state began tracking yearly expenditures on the perk in 2011. (Boston Herald)

The Baker administration is adding more than 400 addiction and psychiatric treatment beds. (The Sun)

Peter Lucas laments the brain drain in the Senate, and puts the blame on US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and her crusade against patronage. (The Sun)

The Big Three: One big happy family. (State House News)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

The state’s Community Compact program, which helps cities and towns with redevelopment strategies, gets kudos from the Berkshire Eagle for taking North Adams under its wing.

CASINOS/GAMBLING 

A jackpot-fixing investigation extends to multiple state lotteries. (Chicago Tribune)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Do you owe the IRS money? Well, better pay up or the feds may revoke your passport. (USA Today)

The Christian Science Monitor takes a multi-part look at strategies to end homelessness.

ELECTIONS

Daniel Quirk, owner of several car dealerships on the South Shore, has been fined $60,000 by the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance for funneling illegal contributions through employees to four state and local officials, including Gov. Charlie Baker and Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch. (Patriot Ledger)

David Frum in The Atlantic explores the great Republican revolt.

A Herald editorial praises Lindsey Graham, who pulled out of the GOP presidential race, and hopes his departure might strengthen the chances the party can coalesce around a reasonable choice (or as Graham pal John McCain might put it, one of the non-wacko birds).

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

An analysis shows black and Latino applicants continue to be rejected for mortgages at higher rates than white counterparts with similar incomes. (Boston Globe)

Brockton-based W.B. Mason laid off 200 workers just before Christmas, a result of acquisitions through the year that added more than 300 employees to the largest privately owned office supply company in the country. (The Enterprise)

Plans are filed with the city for a striking 22-story condo tower with twisting, angular features on Boston’s waterfront. (Boston Globe)

Citizens Bank gets slapped by the feds with a $2 million fine for failing to follow through on various customer services such as credit monitoring.

Debt collectors routinely sue delinquent account holders in court and prevail even if they have the wrong person. The collectors invoke the fine print in contracts requiring debtors to use arbitration instead of the judicial system if they are aggrieved. (New York Times)

Eastern Bank sponsors a competition to develop a video about a safe deposit box. (The Item)

RELIGION

The Boston Archdiocese has agreed to hold off on evicting a group of parishioners who have occupied a shuttered Scituate church for a decade in return for the group’s promise to leave if the Supreme Court refuses to hear their case. (Patriot Ledger)

A Muslim couple set up a makeshift station outside a Cambridge library with signs reading, “Ask a Muslim” and “Talk to a Muslim” in an effort to demystify their faith and invite dialogue with people who may have questions about Islam. (Boston Globe)

 EDUCATION

Tufts University will take over operation of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. (Boston Globe)

A Boston University men’s hockey player has been benched all year because he is the subject of an investigation into gambling on sports contests, the Globe reports.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey are leading an effort to get the Department of Education to discourage debt collectors from using robocalls for delinquent student loans, an action that was approved in the congressional spending bill even for people on the federal “do not call list.” (GateHouse News)

 HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

The CEO of the Dimock Community Health Center in Roxbury discusses the opioid crisis with the Herald.

Steward Health Care has filed a federal lawsuit against Southcoast Health claiming the small hospital group has a “complete monopoly” on cardiac catheterization care in the southeastern region of Massachusetts. (Standard-Times)

A Salem News editorial praises consumers for starting to shop around for health care.

Jeff Nesbit, a former National Science Foundation official in the Bush and Obama administrations, says the war on drugs is over — and we lost. (U.S. News & World Report)

Day 3 of the special report on the heroin crisis from the Eagle-Tribune and its sister publications.

 ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

National Grid is on the hook for $1.25 million in state penalties for violations of gas pipeline safety measures. (Cape Cod Times)

SCIENCE

Entrepreneur Elon Musk succeeds in deploying satellites and having the rocket that accomplished the feat return to Earth in one piece standing up. (The Guardian)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Concord District Court Clerk Magistrate Ann Colicchio is suspended in the wake of a WCVB-TV investigation into no-show activities. (The Sun)

The state medical examiner’s office pulls back again from a previous finding of “shaken baby syndrome,” the third time in just over a year that the office has done so in a case involving a murdered baby in Middlesex County. (Boston Globe)

A Texas grand jury declined to indict anyone in the death of Sandra Bland, who was found hanging in her cell last summer after a routine traffic stop turned contentious. Her family says she would not have killed herself. (New York Times)

MEDIA

Dorchester Reporter editor Bill Forry laments the Globe’s planned departure from Dorchester, and questions whether its future home in the Financial District puts it more in the heart of the city than staying in Boston’s largest neighborhood.