The dismissal of MBTA General Manager Luis Ramirez was a course correction to keep Gov. Charlie Baker's transit reform efforts on track. It also signals a change of thinking within the Baker Administration, which used to talk as if only someone from the private sector could preside over the job of fixing the T. Now it would appear that a subtle shift in thinking has occurred.
Former Deval Patrick Transportation Secretary James Aloisi told WGBH News after the ouster that Ramirez came to the job after a much-touted national search in 2017 "with a little bit of a mismatch of skills and experience."
"He was not a figure that was prominent in any of the initiatives," Aloisi said. "It always seemed to be left to senior staff and others, which I find are very capable people."
After the Ramirez experiment, Baker and current transportation secretary Stephanie Pollack want a GM that will guide that staff and enact the fiscal policies put forward by the true power at the T, Baker's hand-picked Fiscal Management Control Board. Baker appointed the five-person Fiscal Management and Control Board in 2017 as a response to ongoing financial and operational troubles at the T.
"The thing the T really needs to do here is execute on this $8 billion, five-year capital plan that we've got, and Steve Poftak, who's on the FMCB and has been writing about and studying this particular issue for a long time, is the right guy to run with this," Baker told reporters after it was announced that Ramirez was out.
The appointment of new GM Poftak is evidence of the new thinking: the T's manager is most effective as an extension of the board and the vision set out at their weekly meetings.
The FMCB has its hand on practically every part of the MBTA apparatus, receives regular updates on performance metrics and dishes out direct orders to T staff on a regular basis. The mission of past GMs, to not only guide the day to day of the agency, but to provide an overarching leadership vision, has been absorbed by Baker's board of dedicated volunteers, making the T chief's role more that of a CEO who consistently answers to higher-ups than the free-hand GMs of the past few decades.
If Baker and Pollack made a mistake hiring Ramirez in the first place, it wasn't solely about Ramirez' qualifications for the job. The real mistake may have been not selecting Poftak, who served as acting GM just prior to Ramirez' appointment in September 2017, even sooner.
"The real game at the MBTA is to find both a governance structure that is consistent in its approach and what it's aiming to do and, together with that, a leader who is there for the long term and aligned with the goals of the secretary the governor and the control board," said Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute, a fiscal watchdog group that employed Poftak as research director before Poftak became executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard Kennedy School.
"I think the infrastructure of having a very successful fiscal management control board with Steve is a terrific combination," Aloisi said.
Beyond enacting the board's fiscal discipline and capital spending plans under Poftak, the T still has its main mission of running the trains on time. For this side of things - call it the chief operating officer slot next to Poftak's chief executive position - Baker and his team will look to the most reliable component of the MBTA's entire apparatus: Deputy General Manager Jeff Gonneville.
"[Gonneville is] going to be absolutely essential. I think that Jeff has proven himself to be respected within the administration, by the control board. I think to some degree there was the sense over the past six to twelve months that Jeff was really in the driver's seat more than Luis may have been," Stergios said.
This article has been updated.
