The Senate later this week will debate a $261.6 million spending bill that does not include House-backed election reforms and takes a similar, but not identical, approach to future MBTA oversight that could put the branches on track to enter formal negotiations over another time sensitive piece of legislation.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee on Monday released its redrafted version of the $257 million fiscal 2021 supplemental budget (H.3871) that the House passed on June 10 – including its recommended new composition for an MBTA board that is slightly different from what the House approved.
Senators have until 11 a.m. Wednesday to file amendments to the redrafted bill, which is slated for debate Thursday. The new fiscal year starts on July 1, which is also when the current MBTA oversight board expires and when House and Senate lawmakers are supposed to have reached agreement on a separate fiscal 2022 budget.
The Senate Ways and Means bill closely mirrors the structure of a House proposed successor to the Fiscal and Management Control Board, but with a few key differences.
Originally created in 2015, the T’s Fiscal and Management Control Board was set to expire last summer. Lawmakers agreed to extend it for another year and it is now due to be eliminated when the fiscal year ends after June 30.
The proposals coming out of both branches each recommend a seven-member board with the secretary of transportation serving in an ex officio capacity, the governor picking five board members with particular backgrounds, and one member to be appointed by the MBTA Advisory Board, an independent group representing the interests of the 176 cities and towns who direct their tax dollars to the transit agency.
But the Senate Ways and Means proposal diverges from the House’s recommendation when it comes to the guardrails around the governor’s appointments.
The House bill would require the governor to pick one member with experience in safety, one with experience in transportation operations, one with a background in finance, one member from a list of three people submitted by the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and one member who is an MBTA rider.
The Senate would require that the MBTA Advisory Board’s appointee have municipal government experience in the T’s service area and experience in transportation operations, transportation planning, housing policy, urban planning, or public or private finance. It would also require the governor to pick one person with a background in transportation operations and safety, one person with experience in public or private finance, one member with a background in transportation or urban planning, one member from a list of three people submitted by the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, and one member with municipal government experience in the T’s service area.
One of those five gubernatorial picks would also have to be an MBTA rider who lives in an environmental justice community.
The Senate also calls for more mandated subcommittees of the new board. Whereas the House bill would require the board to establish subcommittees on safety, and audit and finance, the Senate would require subcommittees on safety, health and environment, planning and workforce development, and audit and finance.
The Senate would also require that the new MBTA board meet more often than the House prescribed. The House called for the new board to meet at least 12 times a year and the Senate is looking to up that requirement to 20 meetings a year including at least one meeting each month. To make up for it, the Senate would make annual stipends of $12,000 available to board members, compared to the $6,000 annual stipends in the House bill.
The appropriate number and frequency of public FMCB meetings – it was required to meet for 36 sessions per year under its original statute – has been debated in the past. A months-long review of the T’s safety operations and culture in December 2019 pointed out that the meetings took too much time away from MBTA leadership and staff that could be devoted to day-to-day operations.
“The FMC Board was put in place in 2015 to tackle a myriad of issues and they’ve done a terrific job. At this point, the board should meet less frequently so that management can focus more fully on improving operations at the T,” Baker said in late 2019.
Advocacy groups Transportation for Massachusetts and Conservation Law Foundation are jointly advocating that the FMCB’s replacement should be independent of the MassDOT board and have sole responsibility for hiring and firing the MBTA general manager, capital spending oversight, budgeting, issuing debt for the agency and overseeing T operations.
The groups are also calling for a board that meets 24 times a year to provide “robust public comment opportunities, including options for people to take part outside of standard business hours,” and robust diversity requirements for board membership.
