MBTA overseers unanimously approved a $3 billion budget Tuesday that will ramp up spending ahead and drain the agency’s savings, setting up a major funding gap that is expected to hit next summer.
The MBTA Board gave the green light to a fiscal year 2025 plan that boosts spending 11% over fiscal 2024 while expecting a 10% growth in revenue, some of it from one-time sources.
T officials expect the spending plan will continue to fund a hiring blitz and repair campaign, both of which they view as necessary to improving service that for years has been unreliable.
To balance the books, the budget would draw down $307 million in pandemic-era reserves and shift $191 million in federal preventative maintenance funds to the operating side of the ledger.
More on the MBTA budget
Board members approved the plan that leans on dwindling one-time resources minutes after hearing a stark warning about the fiscal 2026 outlook from a watchdog representing cities and towns who help fund the T.
MBTA officials expect they will face a budget gap of nearly $700 million in fiscal year 2026, when they may look to Beacon Hill for help as the agency tries to address infrastructure woes and attain service levels that may boost ridership.
“That is an enormous gap, and we see, at this point, no clear path for covering it,” Roy Epstein, a Belmont Select Board member who chairs the operating budget oversight committee at the independent MBTA Advisory Board. “It’s going to require some concerted action at, I believe, all levels of government.”
