An MBTA Red Line train leaves Harvard Square station headed towards Boston. iStock photo
The hiring blitz at the T will keep going full steam ahead.
Or it probably will, at least if the MBTA’s final budget looks like the preliminary version that’s up for a vote Thursday.
Budget-writers envision a headcount of more than 8,000 employees in fiscal 2026, a full 1,000 positions above one month ago and more than 40 percent more than the recent low during Gov. Charlie Baker’s closing stretch in office.
Baker’s successor, Gov. Maura Healey, and her deputies have implemented a major hiring campaign to grow the T’s workforce and devote more energy – and money – toward repairs, service frequency and everything else that makes the trains and buses run.
That takes a lot of money, of course, and the draft budget T officials previewed last week would bump spending up 7 percent to about $3.24 billion. The largest area of growth, about $73 million, would be on wages.
The plan will hinge on Beacon Hill. MBTA officials have been warning for years about a massive budget cliff that’s about to hit, and both Healey and top House Democrats have signaled they’re on board with a major injection of additional cash to help span the gap.
“I think we really feel we’re heading in the right direction,” House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz said in a WCVB interview last week, aiming particular praise at MBTA General Manager Phil Eng. “He’s really done the hard work, made the tough decisions over the last couple years. And we want to make sure that we’re fully invested into that from a financial standpoint.”
Senate Democrats still haven’t indicated if they will match the proposed investment, plus T officials forecast that even with the sizable increase in state funding Healey and House Democrats have outlined, their expenses will outpace revenues.
The T is eyeing $82 million in additional savings of its own to balance out the whole picture, which officials think they can achieve by reducing professional services, minimizing overtime spending and taking some other cost-controlling steps.
