To find ways to save, T spends

Consultants to make up to $610 per hour

if you’re $600 million in the hole and have a persistent problem making budget, how do you fix your money problems?

if you’re governor maura healey’s new transportation task force, you hire a team of consultants who charge as much as $610 an hour.

Facing a $628 million budget gap for its next fiscal year, the mBTA in April signed a $450,000 contract with consulting firm Ernst & Young to research how transportation is and could be funded in massachusetts, as well as how other states and countries do it.

The hourly rate for the nine consultants ranges from $244 to $610.

The contract is one of the first initiatives overseen by a new task force appointed by healey to solve some of the state’s longstanding transportation issues. The consultants will prepare the task force’s final report about sustainably funding transportation in massachusetts by december, according to the contract.

But some members of the task force expressed concern about relying on pricey consultants, whose firms are often hired by state agencies to do all kinds of governmentrelated work.

“The last thing massachusetts needs is another consultant-driven report,” said Bri

‘The last thing Massachusetts needs is another consultantdriven report.’ BriAn kAnE, MBTA Advisory Board

an Kane, who serves as executive director of the MbTA Advisory board. “what we need is political action.”

spokesperson for the state’s transportation agency, MassDOT, Amelia Aubourg said the new contract is an add-on to an existing one the consultant firm has with the MbTA, and that MassDOT will reimburse the T.

“we value thought leadership and wanted to explore what is happening in the national landscape when it comes to financing transportation,” Aubourg said in a statement. “it helps to have these economists who have been analyzing the industry and have access to provide the full range of what is possible now and in the future.”

ernst & Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Much of the research about the state’s transportation funding woes and solutions that the ernst & Young consultants were hired to do has already been conducted by state agencies and outside organizations in recent years. MbTA staff have also presented information about what other states are doing to the agency’s board.

healey created the transportation funding task force in January when she released her budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts in July, which provides $172 million toward closing the T’s estimated $628 million budget gap. The task force, healey said, is meant to report to her by the end of the year on recommendations for a statewide “long-term, sustainable transportation finance plan.”

healey announced the task force’s 31 appointees in february; some are members of her administration. The chair is secretary of Transportation Monica Tibbits-nutt, and the vice chair is Administration and finance secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz.

The MbTA is paying ernst & Young senior managing director Jon Godsmark and two other senior managing directors, Tom Rousakis and Andrew Phillips, $610 per hour for their services. linkedin profiles for the consultants show Godsmark and Phillips are based in washington, D.c., and Rousakis is based in new York.

for a task force meeting this month, the consultants were charged with preparing a “presentation of analysis of current state transportation funding sources, projections of future revenue, and key drivers,” according to a copy of the contract. next month, the consultants are supposed to prepare a “presentation summarizing international and Us peer analysis to identify a range of potential new transportation funding sources.” in July and August, they will present possible revenue sources and the “potential economic and social impacts” of those sources.

by October, the consultants will draft a “technical report for review by the task force members,” then, by the first week of December, they will have a final report ready for task force member review, according to the contract.

The consultants are supposed to meet weekly with MassDOT, Administration & finance, and the MbTA, according to the contract.

A Globe report earlier this year found that Minnesota and new York passed new taxes to balance the operating budgets of their largest transit agencies for years to come.

last month, healey told a business group she has “no plans to propose new taxes or raise existing ones” and shut down an idea floated by Tibbitsnutt to put tolls at the state’s borders.

some task members expressed frustration about the decision to bring on the consultants without determining as a group what the scope of the contract should be. Members said they had not seen the contract.

Task force member Amie shei, chief executive of The health foundation of central Massachusetts, said there is “no transparency” into what the consultants are focused on.

“Greater transparency about what the consultants are working on would be helpful so that we’re not duplicating efforts,” she said. “for someone who serves central Massachusetts, i would want to know that regional equity is a consideration and that consultants are not focused solely on the MbTA.”

Kane, of the MbTA Advisory board, said he doubts MassDOT will reimburse the MbTA for the contract, citing the fact the department still hasn’t reimbursed the T for $7 million in transit mitigation during the closure of the sumner Tunnel last year. Aubourg of MassDOT said the MbTA will be reimbursed once the consultants’ work is finished.

“i can’t believe we’re doing this again,” Kane said of the research. The Advisory board has prepared dozens of reports about MbTA finances.

Task force member Jim Rooney, ceO of the boston chamber of commerce and a former general manager of the T, said he thinks the task force needs outside help and praised ernst & Young’s qualifications, saying there’s value in having a fresh set of eyes on the problem.

but, the task force’s final product is likely to look less like a path forward and more like a “menu of possible solutions.”

“i don’t think it will get to a definitive point of saying: here is the plan,” Rooney said.