A state senator is asking for a brand new security oversight authority of the MBTA days earlier than he chairs a legislative listening to trying into whether or not the Department of Public Utilities ought to proceed in that position.
“I like the model of the semi-autonomous state commission,” stated Mike Barrett, Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy. “I think of the Office of Campaign & Political Finance or the inspector general’s office or the Ethics Commission.”
“If the feds are looking for safety oversight to enjoy some separation from gubernatorial power, quasi-independent models offer a path forward,” he added.
Whether the DPU ought to proceed to function the “commonwealth’s watchdog over safety on the MBTA,” because the workplace of Barrett and House Chair Jeff Roy put it, would be the focus of the joint committee’s listening to on Thursday morning.
Legislators additionally plan to overview the DPU’s formal response to the Federal Transit Administration’s Aug. 31 security administration inspection report, which ordered the company to beef up its staffing and overview its independence from the MBTA.
In its response, the DPU outlined a plan to share the outcomes of its workload evaluation with the FTA by Dec. 15. Its HR division will then work to create and put up jobs to fill recognized gaps in assets, and DPU will present month-to-month updates on hiring to the feds by way of 2023.
“The DPU understands its important role as the SSOA and remains committed to ensuring that the MBTA is implementing safety-critical required actions to address the FTA’s immediate safety concerns for MBTA riders and employees,” DPU Chair Matthew Nelson wrote in a Sept. 29 letter to FTA Associate Administrator Joe DeLorenzo.
However, Barrett stated the true drawback is that the MBTA and the DPU are competing in a really powerful labor marketplace for individuals with the identical ability set.
“The best way for the DPU to compete in that type of environment would be for the DPU to let go of the safety auditing function and see it set up in some autonomous function,” he stated.
The committee might make a advice about continued DPU oversight, however the remaining choice would come within the type of laws, Barrett stated.
On Thursday, lawmakers will consider whether or not the DPU is “hopelessly compromised” from doing its job as a result of it must focus most of its consideration on the interrelated questions of local weather, power and the surroundings, he stated.
“They’re certainly stretched too thin,” Barrett stated. “In an ideal world, we would move away from the question about whether today’s personnel are doing their jobs and onto the question about whether there’s an institutional alignment here that would beat individual heroic efforts to monitor T safety.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”