Unpredictable fuel costs have also contributed to the T’s increased financial woes. Paul Regan, executive director of the MBTA Advisory Board, said the T has experienced a 155.9 percent increase in fuel costs since 2000, adding that gas has gone up roughly 50 cents per gallon since the agency submitted its budget to the advisory board in March.
BOSTON. The MBTA Advisory Board tomorrow will take up the T’s FY09 $1.455 billion operating budget that aims to draw heavily from reserves and restructure debt to cover a $75 million shortfall.
The budget calls for depleting one-third of the T’s rainy day funds to close the gap.
Debt payments will make up 26 percent of the operating budget, health care costs continue to rise and the T has also had to cope with having $200 million less in sales tax revenue than expected since 2000, when its forward funding plan began.
Yesterday, the Advisory Board’s executive director, Paul Regan, cast a similar outlook on the T’s financial situation that the agency’s own officials have said for months — there are “serious problems.”
The MBTA Board of Directors approved the budget in March, when a T official told the board “the probability of the authority solving its structural deficit in Fiscal 2009 and beyond will be difficult, if not impossible, without additional revenue sources, debt relief or significant service cuts.”
The MBTA Advisory Board has the final say on the budget, and Regan said the board will likely approve it, admitting there isn’t much to amend considering the T trimmed as much it could.
The MBTA is not the only transportation agency struggling financially.
The state is still mulling over if and how to lend support to other agencies, such as the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
“It will take forces beyond the MBTA to fix this,” Regan said.
