Here’s how Charlie Baker wants to replace the MBTA’s oversight board
The new board would be required to include one MBTA rider.
Five years after the turbulent winter of 2015, the MBTA’s Fiscal Management and Control Board is approaching its expiration date. And in his budget proposal Wednesday for the upcoming year, Gov. Charlie Baker is pitching a replacement.
The Massachusetts governor — who approved the formation and appointed all five members of the FMCB in 2015 — proposed a seven-member successor to the MBTA’s oversight board, which is scheduled to sunset at the end of June.
The new board envisioned by Baker would include the state’s secretary of transportation — currently, Stephanie Pollack — and five other members appointed by the governor —including a safety expert, transportation operations expert, public or private finance expert, and an MBTA rider.
It would also include a representative from the 175 cities and towns that pay assessments to the agency, who would be selected by the MBTA advisory board representing those communities. The proposed municipal representative follows calls from some local elected officials — such as Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu — for communities to have a seat at the new board, following last summer’s crippling Red Line derailment.
“There was a lot of interest on the part of participating communities that, if there’s going to be a board, that they have a voice on it,” Baker said Wednesday, according to The Boston Globe, adding that it’s a “good idea.”
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, however, is pushing for Boston to have its own seat on the new board. Following last summer’s derailment, Walsh argued that “Boston is most impacted by the failures” of the MBTA. And in a statement Wednesday to the Globe, the mayor said that as “the largest payer into the MBTA system,” the city should have its own “dedicated seat and voice.”
According to Baker’s proposal, the board’s members — with the exception of the transportation secretary — would be appointed to four-year terms. They would also meet just 12 times a year, compared to the 36 meetings a year the FMCB currently holds. An outside safety report last month blamed the 36-meeting mandate for “overwhelming” MBTA staffers and leaving them little time to focus on operating the system.
“It’s unquestionable that this mandate is causing staff to ‘take their eye off the ball’ and contributes to safety not getting the time and attention it requires,” the report said.
The new board would be established the day after the FMCB sunsets: July 1.
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