THE PIONEER BLOG

Editorial Staff

Report Showing MBTA Pension Fund Performance “Too Good To Be True” Reinforces Pioneer Research

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BOSTON – Stories in The Boston Globe (“Madoff whistle-blower: The T’s pension plan may be $470M short,” June 27th, and “T pension board’s new members call for tough review of fund,” June 29th) validate concerns about the management and condition of the MBTA Retirement Fund (MBTARF) that Pioneer Institute first raised in 2013 (“Have the MBTA’s Retirement Plans Gone Off the Rails?“), and many times since then (here, here, here, here, here, and here). According to the Globe, a new study by Harry Markopolos, the whistle-blower in the Bernard Madoff case, and Boston University professor Mark T. Williams, finds that the MBTARF may be overestimating its value by nearly half a billion dollars, as well as underestimating how long its […]

Editorial Staff

Pioneer and You – Together We Can Fix the T

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Pioneer has been attacked in a recent radio (WBZ, WEEI, and elsewhere) campaign as “shark privatizers.”  The ads falsely claim that Pioneer’s motivation for working on the MBTA crisis is so that our “corporate pals can get their hands on even more of our public facilities.” Listen to our response: Help us respond to the Amalgamated Transit Union’s attack with the real story. Yes, our research has indeed shaped the public debate over a time-limited control board that will need to get the T working in a way that is worthy of our great state. And the reason we do it is because we know how important reliable transit is to 1.3 million riders, thousands of employers, and the region’s economic […]

Mary Connaughton

A Pretty Much Guaranteed Free Ride

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There’s no such thing as a free ride. Ask any accountant and he or she will tell you that there’s always a cost involved. Some businesses give free samples to market their products – a cost to grow revenue.  Others give their products or services away because of inadequate controls. The MBTA falls into the latter category. There is a growing buzz about sporadic fare collection on the commuter rail.  Riders may or may not be charged because of the number of conductors or riders on any given train. Non-pass holding riders know the odds well – in time, they’ll get to work or home without forking over a dime. It’s a waiting game. But there are some pretty much […]

Editorial Staff

Fixing Our Troubled Justice System – 2015 Better Government Awards Gala

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This Wednesday evening, Pioneer Institute is recognizing the most innovative proposals from non-profits and community groups, law enforcement agencies, and policymakers across the U.S. on the topic, “Improving Public Safety and Controlling Costs in America’s Criminal Justice System.” The winner, runners-up, and special recognition awardees will be honored at a June 24th awards gala at the Seaport Hotel in Boston. At the awards gala, Massachusetts Governor Charles D. Baker will provide welcome remarks, and former Boston police commissioner, Edward F. Davis, will deliver the keynote address. Watch Videos of the Winner and Runners Up: Read the 2015 Better Government Competition Compendium of Winning Entries: Pioneer Institute’s Better Government Competition, founded in 1991, is an annual citizens’ ideas contest that rewards some of the nation’s […]

Sabrina Chishti

Fed up with Faulty Fare Collection

/0 Comments/in /by Sabrina Chishti

The Problem: Angry Customers and Less Revenue Last Saturday was a busy day in the Hub. With the Boston Pride Parade and a Red Sox game both in full swing by midday, commuter rail lines were packed with people flowing into the city. Pioneer Institute learned that on at least one crowded Worcester/Framingham train, fares went uncollected. That means a free pass for much of the weekend crowd, who are less likely to hold monthly passes than daily commuters. Saturday’s lapse is not an isolated incident. In fact, inconsistent fare collection by conductors is a growing commuter rail complaint. For a daily commuter who pays between $75 and $362 for a monthly pass, it’s highly disturbing to see others ride […]

Kevin Lawson

Massachusetts Financial Disclosures – Weak and Out of Reach

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In the last five years, 250 public servants in Massachusetts faced charges for crimes or ethics violations, according to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), which rated Massachusetts a D+ on legislative accountability. In an interview with the CPI, George Brown, former chairman of the State Ethics Commission, attributed this dismal grade to a political culture that puts itself above the law. The state’s high rate of ethical lapses and low legislative accountability grade are by-products of our inadequate government transparency laws and policies. A key ingredient of government transparency is the Statement of Financial Interests (SFIs) elected officials and other policy-making appointees are required to file annually. When the thoroughness of or public access to SFIs is wanting, a […]

Matt Blackbourn

What Court Documents Show About Compensation at the MBTA vs. Peer Communities

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by Matt Blackbourn and John Sivolella

Introduction As the Baker Administration works with the state legislature to determine the future course of the MBTA, a critical component of this deliberative process should be revisiting and interpreting the long-standing, often contentious history of interest arbitration between the MBTA and its public employee unions.  The Boston Carmen’s Union, ATU Local 589, is the largest of the MBTA’s 28 bargaining units, representing roughly 3,500 employees over a range of 45 distinct job classifications—or approximately 55 percent of the MBTA labor force.  The outcome of the MBTA’s negotiations with Local 589 typically sets a ‘pattern’ that the other MBTA unions follow.  This method is not based on statute or in collective bargaining agreements, but is a practice that has emerged […]

Sandra Stotsky

Why Massachusetts Should Abandon the PARCC Tests & Common Core

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It is difficult to find any public analysis and comments by teachers, parents, researchers, or literary scholars on PARCC’s “practice” and “sample” test items for English language arts for grades 3-11.   Taking the bull by the horns, that is what I decided to do in my invited testimony before the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education at the public hearing at Bridgewater State University on June 10, 2015, on whether the Board should abandon the MCAS tests and adopt the PARCC tests. In my written testimony, I first describe my qualifications, as well as the lack of relevant qualifications in Common Core’s standards writers and in most of the members of Common Core’s Validation Committee, on which I […]

Kevin Lawson

MassDOT Relocation Proposal Gives Way to More Pressing Issues

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The Baker administration has recently abandoned a proposal to move the headquarters of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation from its current location at 10 Park Plaza to a vacant seven-acre parcel in Roxbury known as Tremont Crossing. Fundamental to the project’s demise was its exorbitant price tag, which early estimates placed at $350 million, far more than the $121 million valuation of the MassDOT’s current home, as cited by a BostInno reporter. Governor Baker’s spokesman, Tim Buckley, noted recently that “given the $1.8 billion deficit the administration inherited, there are currently no plans to relocate the state transportation building”. This is another welcome display of sound financial management from the governor’s office. Still, members of the Roxbury community, who had […]

MuckRock

A Tale of Two Transparencies

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Recently, we wrote about the redemption of Secretary of State William Galvin after a records request for communications between his office and the Office of the Attorney General revealed the frustrating brush-offs he had received from the previous two AGs. Shortly thereafter, we received a response to an identical request we had made to the AG’s office. Since both requests were asking for the same documents, the correspondence should have been identical; what was received sheds light on how each office handled the request. The AG’s office provided mostly their own letters to Secretary Galvin’s office and neglected to provide the responses or original referral letters from Secretary Galvin’s office. In comparison, Secretary Galvin’s office provided almost all correspondence between […]

Editorial Staff

The Convention Center Authority’s Inflated Claims

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In the wake of our recent brief, Analyzing the Convention Center Authority’s Inflated Claims, comes word that the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) contributed $23.5 million to a trust fund created by the Patrick administration to fund trade missions before then-Gov. Patrick approved the proposed $1 billion expansion of the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) last year.  The brief, authored by Charles Chieppo, exposes some of the MCCA’s misrepresentations about the economic impact of the proposed expansion. Our report reveals that: Only eight events booked at the BCEC over the next 13 years – not 18 as the MCCA has claimed – have escape clauses that allow them to go elsewhere if expansion doesn’t go forward. Despite claims that […]

Greg Sullivan

Post-Olympic Real Estate Implications of the Boston 2024 Proposal

/0 Comments/in /by Greg Sullivan and Matt Blackbourn

Two weeks ago, a series of documents published by a number of sources, including the Boston Business Journal, Boston Magazine and the New York Times, revealed development plans for the Boston Olympics that give the public greater information and raise new questions about the effort to bring Boston the 2024 Olympics. Of great interest to Pioneer, the “bid book” disclosed some of the post-Olympic real estate implications of bringing the games to Boston.  What it made clear to us is that there is much more to the proposal than the Olympics—it’s also about post-Olympics real estate development rights. The Boston 2024 Olympics plan includes an expansive post-Olympics private real estate development proposal for the Olympics site, facilitated by a combination […]

Scott Haller

MBTA Experiencing Severe Delays in Transparency

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This winter the MBTA proved that it is capable of publishing complete and exhaustive performance and operation data, so why has it stopped? We still don’t know much about the extent of this winter’s detrimental effects to our bus and subway systems. In January, the MBTA dropped its monthly performance ScoreCards which covered all modes of transportation, and included data on ridership levels, on-time performance, maintenance needs, equipment failure rates, schedule performance, and even the severity of commuter rail delays. (Currently the ScoreCard archive can only be reached through an internet search. The MBTA’s website links to MassDOT’s Performance Management Division, which links back to the MBTA’s webpage in a loop.) The only performance report consistently published by the MBTA […]

Jim Stergios

Way off track

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A couple of weeks ago, Ari Ofsevit wrote a pretty scathing blog claiming that Pioneer is really, really bad at math.  We take math and transparency seriously here at Pioneer, so after sharing my reply with Ari last week, I wanted to post it publicly. Ofsevit’s piece is remarkable, not for the quality and length of his ranting, but rather for the fact that he complains about math errors without ever identifying a single math error.  Along the way, he misrepresents lots of stuff.  Here is the hit parade: Ofsevit is wrong in attributing the absenteeism numbers in the governor’s special panel to Pioneer.  The Institute had nothing to do with the absenteeism numbers they cite (which in part, I would guess, […]

Jim Stergios

The Single Biggest Obstacle to Reform at the MBTA

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post by Gregory W. Sullivan & Matthew Blackbourn In an article published in the Globe last week, the MBTA Carmen’s union threatened to block MBTA federal transit funding if the legislature enacts the governor’s proposal to give the proposed fiscal and management control board final say on collective bargaining agreements. We hope that the legislature sees this threat for what it is: bully tactics by MBTA unions against the house and senate. This isn’t the first time MBTA unions have used the nuclear option of attempting to shut off federal funding to block a legislative reform that endeavored to do nothing more than treat MBTA employees exactly the same way other public employees in the state are treated. In 2009, Local […]