THE PIONEER BLOG

Scott Haller

MBTA commuter rail should release on-time data from every station every day

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As Pioneer has pointed out numerous times in the past, the MBTA has a habit of putting a positive public-relations spin on its shaky on-time performance record.  A Fox 25 investigative report takes the MBTA to task for massaging on-time data and keeping the public in the dark about its real record.  The report validates Pioneer’s ongoing concerns about the lack of transparency at the T, and furthers the call for increased accountability. After more than five years employing an easily-accessible, data-rich reporting scheme, albeit with summary rather than detailed data, the T has spent the last year crafting a new barebones successor. Although the T claimed in September that the new reports are still a ‘work in progress,’ there […]

Editorial Staff

Fordham’s PARCC v. MCAS Report Falls Short

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Guest post by Richard P. Phelps The Fordham Institute has long been at work on a study of the relative quality of tests produced by the two Common Core-aligned and federally funded consortia (PARCC and SBAC), ACT (Aspire), and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (MCAS).  What Fordham has produced is only in the most superficial way an actual analysis – in fact, it reads more like propaganda and lacks the basic elements of objective research. It takes only a little digging under the surface to reveal pervasive conflicts of interest, a one-sided sourcing of evidence, and a research design so slanted it cannot stand against any scrutiny. In developing their supposedly analytic comparisons of PARCC, SBAC, Aspire and MCAS, the authors […]

Scott Haller

MBTA Management Discussions: Where Did They Go?

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The government works for the people. As with any employee, the employer (citizens of Massachusetts) would prefer that the employee admit its errors or problems outright, instead of trying to cover up the tracks. Apparently, the MBTA needed this principle explained in greater detail. The T’s independent auditor, KPMG, recently said that the T has failed to include a critical part of its financial statements, the management discussion and analysis. This section is meant to cut through the numbers and accounting lingo to provide a layman’s understanding of the state of the agency’s financial situation. Starting in 2002, the T began including this section in its financial statements to comply with new standards set by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board […]

Editorial Staff

Presidents Day: The Innovative JQA

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Guest Post by Jordan Harris Although several Presidents have ascended to the Oval Office from the business world, very few have been innovators or entrepreneurs. Only one, Abraham Lincoln, has held a patent in his name. One of America’s most innovation-friendly Presidents was not a businessman at all, but was instead lifelong statesman, Massachusetts-born John Quincy Adams. John Quincy Adams, who became President in 1824, envisioned a federal government which spent more money on building canals, developing highways (130 years before Eisenhower’s Interstate System), and providing financial support for scientific expeditions. It was evident that the economy was rapidly changing; a transition to manufacturing was occurring, and science and technology were becoming increasingly important. According to historian Paul C. Nagel, […]

Michael Weiner

Thoughts on Transparency: Full Disclosure of Gasoline Taxes

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by Michael Weiner

One of Pioneer Institute’s ongoing goals is to promote government transparency in the state. With the 2015 release of Agenda for Leadership, Pioneer’s James Stergios and Mary Connaughton put forth a comprehensive plan to increase the economic freedom and mobility of Massachusetts citizens.  To do so, transparency plays a crucial role.  After all, citizen engagement is the very heart of a healthy democracy. One of the ideas in Agenda for Leadership concerns the disclosure of motor vehicle fuel taxes. Information on state fuel taxes is available online (the Mass. DOR website publishes the information, and the American Petroleum Institute website has state-by-state information as well), but the vast majority of residents may not be aware of the extent of these […]

Scott Haller

MBTA Performance Transparency: A Whole New Meaning to Deferred Maintenance

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Governments need to adapt to the evolving needs of constituents, and in modern times, this increasingly becomes a matter of embracing technology. Examples of such progress include the ParkBoston App, eliminating the need for runs to feed the meter, and the cashless tolling system which is destined to relieve at least some of the Pike’s toll booth logjams. These uses of technology clearly improve basic government functions for the sake of consumers. Technology also eases government transparency efforts. Instead of manually copying hundreds of pages, an information request can be fulfilled by email. Technology has also increased the amount of data that governments have available. In this information age, thousands of data points are collected about healthcare, welfare, utilities, traffic, […]

Michael Weiner

Comparing Retirement Benefits for MBTA and other State Employees

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Pioneer’s latest report, A $49 Million Sweetheart Deal: How MBTA Employee Unused Sick Perk Enhances Pensions, illustrates how MBTA employees are taking advantage of a 1975 arbitrator’s decision to reap substantial retirement benefits through their unused sick days. The report further illuminates the incredible sums of money being spent at the MBTA on salaries and benefits compared with other state agencies and Massachusetts municipalities, bringing more attention to the fiscal mismanagement taking place at the MBTA. Additional data analysis done by Pioneer’s Greg Sullivan using data from the National Transit Database (NTD) shows just how much better pensions can be for MBTA employees.  Comparing retirement benefits for both MBTA and regular state employees given equal salaries and equal numbers of […]

Mary Connaughton

Our Government Transparency Resolutions for 2016

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While it’s possible that 2016 will see an historic surge in policies and laws that promote transparency in Massachusetts, the odds are we won’t see a quantum leap. But as we dig deeper into the draft of the public records reform bill released by the Senate yesterday, we are encouraged that, after decades of inaction, Beacon Hill is more tuned in to the public’s demand for transparency – but there is much more work to do. With Massachusetts ranking at or near rock bottom nationally in terms of open government, many are eager to shed the dark veils that mar our governmental processes so the state can assume its rightful place as a leader in good government. As we have traditionally […]

MuckRock

Two States, Two Bills, Two Different Takes on Transparency

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This week, Florida State Representative Greg Steube and Senator Rene Garcia introduced bills that would amend existing Sunshine Laws, making the awarding of attorney’s fees discretionary in cases where agencies were found to be illegally denying access to public records. Currently requires legal fees to be awarded in such cases. Predictably, the bills were met with outrage from the state’s journalists and Open Government community, who saw them as a baldfaced attempt to impede accountability and a direct assault on a citizen’s guarantee of access to public records. Meanwhile, Massachusetts legislation that promises to bring long-overdue public records reform is pending in the Senate after easily passing the House in November. Like the new Florida bills, it leaves the decision […]

Michael Weiner

Report Ranks Boston No. 1 in Income Inequality: What Does It Mean?

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A report published last week by the Brookings Institution ranked Boston number one, but not in a good way. The report gave Boston the ignominious title of having the nation’s worst income inequality, according to its 95/20 ratio (the difference in income between households in the 95th percentile and those in the 20th). Boston placed just above New Orleans, Atlanta and Cincinnati.  New England counterparts New Haven and Providence were also included near the top of the inequality rankings. So inequality in Boston is high, but how much does this matter? Boston’s inequality ranking is troubling, but context is important here. For example, the Brookings report acknowledged that Boston’s ranking is at least in part due to its unusually large […]

Editorial Staff

Dr. King and American History

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Today, America celebrates the legacy of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose eloquence and courage mobilized this nation during the Civil Rights era. Over the last several years, Pioneer Institute has promoted U.S. History instruction in K-12 schools, to ensure that our children will learn about their national heritage, including the story of African Americans’ long struggle to gain the rights and freedoms that were promised at our country’s founding. In 2014, Pioneer held an event, “America in the Age of MLK: Teaching the Civil Rights Movement,” with Robert P. Moses, who directed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s Mississippi Project from 1961-64 and was a key voter registration leader. He is currently a visiting lecturer at the New York […]

Michael Weiner

Airing the State’s Dirty Laundry: New Findings Raise Questions Regarding Ethics and Transparency

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More dirty laundry is coming to the surface in the Massachusetts state legislature.  The Boston Globe reported earlier this week that former senate assistant majority leader Brian Joyce, already in hot water after buying designer sunglasses at a massive discount for all of his senate colleagues last January, spent over a decade taking advantage of free services at a dry cleaning shop in Randolph—potentially an ethics violation because state employees are barred from accepting any benefits worth more than $50 per year, according to the State Ethics Commission.  Governor Baker called for an investigation. These findings not only paint a dark picture of Senator Joyce, but also raise the question of how other dirty laundry at the legislature is managed. Dry cleaning costs […]

Jim Stergios

GE comes to Boston: Here’s why

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The Globe‘s Shirley Leung gets it right in her piece this afternoon on General Electric’s decision to relocate its headquarters to Boston: This is better than hosting the Olympics. No controversy over potential cost overruns, or whether taxpayers will be on the hook for billions of dollars. No worries about traffic on Southeast Expressway, or whether an aging T can handle throngs of visitors. No collective handwringing over whether the pain of throwing what amounts to a three-week party would be worth it all. General Electric moving its headquarters to Boston is all glory, giving us a chance to step onto a global stage on our own terms. The world can now mention Boston in the same sentence as Silicon […]

Jim Stergios

Rather than Cut The Ride’s Services, Change the Service Delivery Model

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by Jim Stergios and Lauren Corvese

On December 14th, the MBTA’s Fiscal and Management Control Board (FMCB) met to discuss how to rein in the agency’s spending and debated making changes to its paratransit system, The Ride. The FMCB faces a daunting task.  The MBTA is plagued with financial woes, including $5.5 billion in outstanding debt and $7 billion in deferred maintenance. That alone translates into $5,000 dollars per each of the commonwealth’s 2.5 million households. This is on top of the MBTA’s current budget shortfall of $170 million this year, annual operating losses, expensive collective bargaining agreements, and unexpected cost overruns with the Green Line Extension project.  The agency definitely needs to make some cuts. The FMCB has proposed a real innovation for MBTA paratransit: […]

Editorial Staff

Helping Those with Mental Illness Find Treatment, Not Incarceration

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Mental illness, the theme of our 2016 Better Government Competition, impacts all of us. In the second part of our ongoing blog series, below, we explore mental health and our criminal justice system. Prisons and jails have become our country’s de facto mental health institutions. Each year, there are two million arrests in the U.S. involving a person with a serious mental illness. In 2014, there were 550,000 Americans suffering from a serious mental illness in jails or prisons.  Ill-prepared to manage populations with a mental health disorder, our criminal justice system has become a revolving door for vulnerable people who need treatment but instead face imprisonment and conditions that exacerbate their afflictions. The common practice of incarcerating individuals with […]