Today’s Globe has a brutal piece on the MBTA’s pension plan and the unbelievable payouts it generates. One of the highlights is former MBTA General Manager Michael Mulhern’s payout. He retired as GM several years ago and got the proverbial soft landing as head of the T’s pension plan. At age 48, he collects a pension of $130,000 and a salary of $225,000. The T’s plan does this because it has many of the crazy features of the other public pension systems (read more about those here) plus it has no minimum age feature, so folks can retire as soon as they get their 20 years in, even if they are in the prime of their careers. To add insult […]

From the Boston Globe of August 9: Cahill’s sharply worded statement is the most serious political breach to erupt between Patrick and a major Democratic figure since his inauguration in January…. Political insiders say much of the breach between Patrick and Cahill stems from the decision last April by Cahill’s one time top political consultant, Doug Rubin, to join the governor as his chief of staff. The relationship between Rubin and Cahill has been strained as the two offices grapple over several difficult issues…. Yesterday’s public flare-up was sparked when….. From the Boston Phoenix of August 15: Cahill has long been closer to Patrick than most in state government — a source in the treasurer’s office says they worked with […]

…would it be worth it to reexamine the contracting process? Barry LePatner thinks so. (Plus he gets bonus points for citing Pioneer in the article.) He questions why the contracting process insulates the service providers from almost all risk. Then partially answers his question by noting that the structure of the construction industry is almost unchanged from 100 years ago. I don’t pretend to have expertise in the subject, but its a provocative read. And probably a conversation worth having before we embark on any more mega-projects.

Sunday’s Globe brings us a long editorial praising the Administration’s commitment to the acquisition of open space in the Commonwealth, including a paragraph-length paean to the Agricultural Preservation Restriction program. This program seems innocuous enough — purchasing the development rights to key strategic parcels of farmland to preserve their agricultural usage. Even I can see some limited utility for this program, in concept, if it protected parcels in rapidly developing areas or that had important environmental qualities. But doesn’t this preservation compete with things like housing or commercial development? (Aha, the countervailing incentives for these programs are elsewhere in the capital budget.) Most tiresome for this observer is the location of many of the selected parcels, typically they are indistinguishable […]