THE MBTA IS HOPING to spend $870 million on capital projects this fiscal year, which is 17 percent more than the agency spent last year but still $330 million short of what it is budgeted to spend.
“Right now our limiting factor is not money. We have a lot of money available,” said Brian Shortsleeve, the T’s acting general manager and chief administrative officer. “Our limiting factor is executing the projects we have and designing and building new projects that will enable us to spend $1.2 billion a year. Our challenge is execution rather than access to funds.”
The T is bulking up its managerial ranks and trying to do a better job of coordinating capital spending across the agency. There are some promising signs. T officials say they plan to award $300 million in state-of-good-repair contracts this year, which is more than was awarded in the last three years combined. The contracts do not include spending for new vehicles or system expansion.
Still, it may be several years before the T is able to spend all available capital funds, and officials warned that this year’s goal may not be met. “There’s no silver bullet, but there’s definitely a more strategic imperative,” said Eric Stoothoff, deputy chief operating officer for infrastructure.
“It starts with having great people in place,” said Shortsleeve. Like other T officials, Shortsleeve said the management team at the transit authority needs to be expanded with high caliber people who will require much higher levels of pay than the agency has offered in the past.
Beth Larkin, the assistant general manager for capital delivery, said the design and construction department at the T is expected to grow from 185 employees to 250, a 35 percent increase.
T officials have been vague about what the higher levels of pay will be, but one indication came on Monday when they hired an independent contractor to manage the Green Line Extension project at a base salary of $280,000, which could rise to more than $382,000 a year with add-ons. Shortsleeve said at a briefing for reporters before announcing the hiring of the independent contractor that salaries would not deter efforts to balance the transit authority’s operating budget. “We certainly have the budget for it,” he said, referring to higher salaries.
Janice Brochu, the T’s chief human resources officer, told the Fiscal Management and Control Board that an overall compensation strategy is under development but offered few other details. She did disclose that 287 MBTA employees had opted for a voluntary retirement incentive program that ended earlier this year. She said 166 of the 287 positions would not be backfilled, for a net reduction in staff of 2.5 percent. She said the retirement program will generate annual payroll savings of $14 million, but indicated that an involuntary retirement program “is under review.”
