{"id":30236,"date":"2017-02-14T11:24:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T16:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30236"},"modified":"2017-02-14T11:24:22","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T16:24:22","slug":"this-might-be-one-reason-infrastructure-projects-in-massachusetts-cost-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30236","title":{"rendered":"This Might Be One Reason Infrastructure Projects In Massachusetts Cost So Much"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/boston.cbslocal.com\/2017\/02\/13\/iteam-mbta-managers-secret-take-home-cars-owned-contractors\/\" target=\"_blank\">Boston CBS Local<\/a> posted an article yesterday about a perk that some state employees receive. It&#8217;s okay for a job to have perks, but somehow this perk was unknown to the general public and hidden under layers of accounting.<\/p>\n<p>The article reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>For possibly more than 30 years, some managers at the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Massachusetts_Bay_Transportation_Authority\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">MBTA<\/a> have enjoyed a perk that\u2019s been hidden from the public: Unmarked take-home <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">cars<\/span><\/span> that are owned by construction companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The I-Team discovered the cost to taxpayers is almost impossible to determine because the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Vehicle\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vehicle\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">vehicles<\/a> have been buried in the overall <span class=\"vm-hook-outer vm-hook-default\"><span class=\"vm-hook\">price<\/span><\/span> of multi-million dollar projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Now, leaders at the cash-strapped agency say the secret car program is coming to a screeching halt. Less than a week after the I-Team started asking questions, the MBTA returned all 23 vehicles to construction companies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;Gas, insurance and maintenance costs were all covered by the contractor, while the MBTA picked up the tab for the $625 monthly parking pass at a private downtown garage.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8230;MBTA <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"General manager\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/General_manager\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">General Manager<\/a> Brian Shortsleeve told the I-Team the contractor-owned vehicles are another example of trying to change \u201cdecades of mismanagement\u201d at the agency.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>He pointed to other recent examples like <a href=\"http:\/\/boston.cbslocal.com\/2016\/07\/05\/review-mbta-security-threats-lapse-money\/\">privatizing operations at the MBTA\u2019s \u201cmoney room<\/a>,\u201d and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local-news\/2016\/08\/31\/the-mbta-will-save-650000-the-next-2-years-by-turning-off-some-old-cell-phones\" target=\"_blank\">eliminating hundreds of unused cell phones<\/a> from the budget.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>In the case of the take-home vehicles, Shortsleeve said the program raised immediate concerns when he heard about it.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to revisit this issue in about six months and see if anything has been done about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston CBS Local posted an article yesterday about a perk that some state employees receive. It&#8217;s okay for a job to have perks, but somehow this perk was unknown to the general public and hidden under layers of accounting. The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30236\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[785,10621,5390,10620],"class_list":["post-30236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boston","tag-brian-shortsleeve","tag-massachusetts-bay-transportation-authority","tag-mbta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30237,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30236\/revisions\/30237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}