Better Government

This study reveals that the MBTA built up a large exposure to financial derivatives and had to pay an estimated $236 million in interest on synthetic swaps for fiscal years 2001 to 2015.

Data released by the National Transit Database (NTD) reveals startling increases in MBTA expenditures on administrative personnel over the past several years, generating even more doubt surrounding the commitment of the Authority to cost-containment. 

This report updates a 2006 study of 14 Massachusetts cities with populations of more than 40,000 and average per-capita annual incomes of below $25,000 (Pittsfield is the one city in the study in which per-capita income is greater than $25,000). It provides a report card on how these Middle Cities are faring a decade after our last analysis, in terms of economic development, financial administration, education, and public safety. The aim is to inform the current policy discourse on redevelopment strategies in these important cities to identify municipalities and policy approaches that may serve as models for all Middle Cities.

Earned sick leave for T employees ranges from 12 to 15 days per year depending on an employee’s classification. Unused days accumulate into employees’ sick leave balances. The purpose of this analysis is to determine how the MBTA’s sick leave policies impact retirement payouts and how that compares to state employee benefits.

This report dissects other studies and their recommendations, with additional suggestions for a direction forward for DCF in the context of a broader discussion of the agency’s recent history and issues with mission ambiguity. The first and most important recommendation is to overhaul the current two-tiered child intake system, which should be the central focus of any changes at the agency.

Three bills currently pending in the Massachusetts Legislature would create a regulatory structure for TNCs; two attempt to address customer safety concerns without imposing burdensome regulations, but a third bill includes at least one poison pill. A new Pioneer Policy Brief argues that rather than apply rules that have led to higher costs and lower quality in the taxi industry, Massachusetts should strive to balance adequate customer protections with maintaining the ability of transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft to do business in the commonwealth.

This policy brief identifies three immediate measures the MBTA should be taking right now to take that third step. The suggestions are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather are suggestions to get that effort started. Cumulatively, the MBTA could garner $103...

The report has three major findings—each of which demonstrates that the Pacheco Law has cost the MBTA more than $450 million since it blocked the MBTA from signing two contracts in 1997 to purchase 38.0 percent of its bus and bus maintenance service from private companies.

A study of thousands of pages of interest arbitration documents stored in Superior Court argues that full, final and binding interest arbitration involving the MBTA circumvents the power of all three branches of government and leaves a single, unelected individual in the role of decision-maker on contract disagreements with tens of millions of dollars at stake.

The analysis 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.  It also finds that despite claims that the facility would not be able to host the BIO conference again without expansion, the show is booked five times between 2021 and 2029 without expansion-related escape clauses.