The MBTA didn’t promote or put out to bid 4 new high-ranking hires that would find yourself costing greater than $1 million a 12 months, officers admit.
T General Manager Phillip Eng as an alternative dished out the 4 new positions to cronies that he labored with at earlier jobs in New York.
Dennis Varley, the brand new “chief of stations” who labored with Eng on the Long Island Railroad, might be making $265,000 a 12 months.
Another Long Island Railroad official, Rod Brooks, the brand new “senior adviser for capital operations and safety,” might be making $120 an hour. If Brooks works a 40-hour week that comes out to greater than $250,000 a 12 months.
Sam Zhou, the brand new “assistant general manager of engineering and capital,” who comes from the New York Department of Transportation, may also be making $265,000 yearly.
Doug Connett, the brand new “chief of infrastructure” who labored with Eng in New York, might be flattening a mere $260,000 a 12 months.
Eng should be emulating the UMass system, which routinely hires “assistant vice chancellors” to pad its huge administrative workforce.
“These transit veterans come to the MBTA with decades of proven experience in public transportation with a strong commitment to serving the public,” T spokesman Joe Pesaturo mentioned. “They have a proven track record of tackling challenges similar to those facing the MBTA.”
The trusted colleagues of Eng, all males, might be becoming a member of an company not precisely trusted by most of the people.
The T has suffered a sequence of indignities and accidents during the last a number of years. Eng was introduced in by Gov. Maura Healey to scrub up the company and be a breath of recent air, however the T continues to endure issues below his management.
But who knew he was going to be padding the payroll with buddies from earlier jobs?
And the most recent blow to the T got here this week with a report by the Massachusetts Inspector General that discovered the transit company overpaid a non-public contract for T “ambassadors” by greater than $5 million.
The MBTA overpaid a Tennessee-based firm to outsource in-station customer support brokers and didn’t set clear targets to trace their efficiency, Massachusetts’ prime authorities watchdog present in a brand new report.
In a damning letter to state transportation officers, Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro mentioned contracts ought to embrace particular efficiency metrics to clarify the extent of service the seller is predicted to supply. Those metrics also needs to be coupled with impartial audits, periodic opinions, and “secret shoppers.”
“The MBTA employed none of these common tools, so it was difficult to assess if the contract met the goal of improving service. For example, the MBTA did not even attempt to ascertain how Block by Block transit ambassadors were conducting and reporting elevator checks,” Shapiro wrote within the letter. “This simple and seemingly small detail has a potentially huge impact on MBTA riders, particularly those with disabilities.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”