Lawmakers redraft Baker’s MBTA bill
Gov. Charlie Baker's MBTA reform package began leaving its station in the Transportation Committee on Monday afternoon minus a few of the provisions the governor included in his own version.
Lawmakers on the committee have until 3 p.m. Tuesday to vote on a bill that would create a fiscal and management control board, while preserving the cap on MBTA fare hikes and without altering final and binding arbitration for labor at the T.
Baker, who took office right before particularly brutal snow and cold jammed up rail service in Metro Boston's transit system, appointed an expert panel before recommending structural fixes to the governance of the T. The T is already engaged in preparing its hardware for next winter.
House Transportation Committee Chairman William Straus, a Mattapoisett Democrat, said the aim of the bill is to place the governor "most directly" in control of the MBTA. Straus said the fare cap allows for predictability among the riding public, and said the union arbitration change that Baker recommends has some complications.
Omitting language that would have altered final and binding arbitration "should not be taken as an indication that we've reached a conclusion on that issue," Straus said in an interview.
Some elements of Baker's transportation reform were included in budgets passed by the House and the Senate. A House budget provision would suspend the law requiring a vetting process before the T attempts to privatize service. A Senate budgetary provision established a fiscal and management control board.
Baker and lawmakers have said their aim is to complete the legislation this summer.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who prior to his leadership meeting with the House speaker and Senate president, said it would be "news to me" that an MBTA bill was being released by committee, said later he couldn't comment on the substance of the bill until he had a chance to read it.
"I'm excited that they're moving forward on it. It means they think it's important and so do we," Baker said in an interview.
Conservation Law Foundation senior attorney Rafael Mares said he appreciated that unlike the governor's bill, the committee version does not scrap a funding schedule outlined in a 2013 tax law.
"It avoids all the problems of the previous bill that we were concerned about," Mares said. He said, "It should really be applauded for not just what it does, but what it avoids."
Mares said the bill also avoids concerns he held about opening the door to increasing the cost of transfers within the system.
The bill directs the secretary of transportation to develop a plan by December to move MBTA employees off the debt-financed capital budget by July 1, 2018, according to a summary. It also makes the MBTA's general manager report directly to the secretary.
The bill also authorizes the MBTA to transfer operation of its ferry service to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Logan International Airport.
The legislation would establish a commission to report on retirement benefits, and another commission to study best practices in transportation governance.
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