MBTA splurges on outside ‘expert’ help
Four contractors cost $1.2M
The cash-strapped MBTA is spending $1.2 million on just four independent contractors to manage some of its major initiatives, including quietly signing a labor negotiator away from the Baker administration this past spring to a $100,000 pay bump, a Herald review found.
The contracts highlight the T’s increasingly frequent strategy of turning to outside help to manage delay-plagued projects or critical negotiations, often making the so-called “independent contractors” some of the highest paid people working for the T.
Dan Grabauskas, a former T general manager forced out in 2009, is the most recent example. The T announced Grabauskas last week as its new “executive director” of its commuter rail system, paying him $30,000 a month — or $360,000 over his yearlong agreement — just a year after he resigned from running a Honolulu transit system.
Other hires date back to last fall and include:
• John Dalton, who could make $442,577 in his first year managing the $2.29 billion Green Line Extension project, thanks to his base $337,777 pay and benefit packages, plus other bonuses;
• Karen Antion, the $260,000-a-year manager of the safety project known as Positive Train Control, or PTC. Tapped in June to fill a role that had been inhouse, Antion helped manage a similar project for a California rail system, but left that post in July 2016 amid delays, reports of infighting and calls to bring in better management, the Herald has reported;
• And Mark D’Angelo, who for 12 years served as director of employee relations at the state’s Human Resources Division before being hired this spring to be the T’s chief labor negotiator. D’Angelo took a $29,901 buyout, records show, from his $140,000-a-year state post in March to sign with the T, where he earns $115 per hour at a guaranteed 40 hours per work — meaning his pay could amount to $239,000 a year.
The T defended the high-priced hires, pointing specifically to the Green Line and PTC projects, which spokesman Joe Pesaturo said had “stalled under the previous management models” but are now on or, in the case of PTC, ahead of schedule.
“We strongly believe this is because we brought in experts with a sole focus on individual projects,” he said. “And once the projects are completed, the independent contractors will no longer be needed.”
The T had specifically sought D’Angelo, who it had “on loan” from the Baker administration last year, to serve as a negotiator in talks with the Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589. In announcing that new fouryear, $1.6 billion deal last December, officials hailed it as a “historic” agreement that would save the T millions.
Pesaturo said the T reimbursed the state half of D’Angelo’s pay during that stint. He’s slated to stay on until at least mid-June, a timeline T officials said was established to keep “continuity” in ongoing labor negotiations.