Gov. Charlie Baker is scaling back a number of planned projects and purchases, including more than $200 million in new T trains, as part of his administration’s move to pare down expenses it said the state cannot afford.
The Baker administration sliced roughly $125 million in projected spending for next year from the state’s capital budget used to fund an array of road, bridge and other infrastructure projects, taking with it millions in IT and higher education projects as well.
Kristen Lepore, Baker’s budget chief, said the moves were made with an eye toward fiscal responsibility and reducing the debt the state would owe as part of an overall $4.1 billion capital budget. It marked the first time in six years that the state wasn’t raising the so-called bond cap by $125 million, as former Gov. Deval Patrick had proposed before he left office.
Among the items hit:
• A five-year plan by Patrick to purchase dozens of Diesel Multiple Units, or self-propelled rail cars that then-MBTA GM Beverly Scott said would cut travel times starting on the Fairmount Line.
Last October, Patrick said the plan would cost $240 million, with the first of the 30 cars arriving in 2018. But Baker officials said they decided to pause the procurement and decide its fate later because the “MBTA cannot, at this time, introduce a new technology” like the so-called DMUs.
• Roughly $35 million in IT projects are being scaled back as IT planning is consolidated into a single office.
• And a number of higher education projects were not included, including a $300,000 study for a new building at Bristol Community College’s New Bedford campus and a $200,000 study for expansion at its Attleboro campus. Officials cited those examples while also emphasizing that Bristol CC was still receiving nearly $16 million to fund ongoing construction projects.
“The administration made strategic decisions on where and how to best allocate the state’s capital resources to achieve a manageable level of future debt,” administration officials wrote in a summary of its budget.
The Herald reported last week that Baker, while speaking at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon, had labeled the capital budget as another victim of a “deficit.” Lepore later said that the capital budget the administration “inherited included more spending items than we believe that we can responsibly afford.”
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