The MBTA’s board of directors unanimously approved the agency’s $2.7 billion fiscal 2024 budget Thursday, a significantly increased spending plan which acknowledges that revenues will be down while employee costs continue to climb.
Next year’s budget comes in at about 7%, or $174 million higher than this fiscal year and the spending plan calls for growing the T’s workforce from 6,679 employees to 7,743, an addition of 964 employees not included in this year’s costs.
Most of those new hires and the mass of that new spending is safety driven, according to MBTA Chief Financial Officer Mary Ann O’Hara
“This budget is very different than the budgets we’ve done in the last three years. It’s unique from prior years just due to the historical investment of state resources into safety and training initiatives,” O’Hara told the Board of Directors ahead of their vote. “The FY2024 budget includes a major investment for safety and training which quadruples prior year efforts.”
More than half of every dollar spent over fiscal 2023’s budget is related to safety, O’Hara said, with a full $68 million worth spent in response to a Federal Transit Administration’s Safety and Management Inspection report.
“This budget reflects a series of investments that sharpen our focus on enhancing safety for our customers, workforce, contractors, and vendors,” MBTA General Manager Phil Eng said in a statement. “The T plays a vital role in connecting people to work, school, family, and friends, and I thank the Board of Directors for approving the FY24 budget. The priorities outlined here provide the means to make progress toward delivering the service our customers deserve and the level of safety – across the entire system – they expect.”
About $181 million will be spent on bridge rehabilitation, station and accessibility upgrades, and the design of the Red-Blue Connector project.
The budget also calls for $5 million to study “means tested” fares, or income driven pricing, with the goal of expanding access to public transit to low income riders.
“This budget strikes a balance between building critical staffing capacity around safety while maintaining our commitment to operating new and future services like the Green Line Extension and South Coast Rail,” Chief Administrative Officer David Panagore, said after the board’s vote.
While 7% may seem like a substantial spending jump, according to the Jim Rooney, the president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, it is money that needs to be spent.
“I think we all have to recognize that to fix the T is going to require some amount of additional resources both in operating and capital funds,” he told the Herald. “So, no surprises. There is a significant amount of money in the training area and we applaud that focus. At least there is the money for new hires that they need. They need bodies. Now they need to develop the hiring process and pipeline to get them hired. Good to know the money is there.”
