The MBTA drained its reserves to balance its fiscal year 2025 budget, and officials project the agency will face a roughly $700 million gap in the next fiscal year that begins July 1, thanks in part to underperforming sales tax revenue.
A flurry of one-time funding injections improved the near-term financial outlook for the MBTA, but with costs growing more quickly than revenues and a still-undetermined amount of spending required to comply with federal orders, that optimism might not last long.
The MBTA faces “existential” long-term budget challenges as the pandemic’s impact on revenue exacerbates existing trends, a fiscal watchdog group warned in a new report.
