BOSTON – State officials shaved about $622 million from the cost of the Green Line Extension project, putting the new price tag at about $2.3 billion and leaving an estimated $73 million funding gap, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack told reporters ahead of a critical meeting on the project Monday afternoon.
The new cost of $2.3 billion, which corresponds to the $2 billion estimate in 2014 and the high-end of $3 billion the T reached last year, has yet to be vetted by the Federal Transit Administration and does not include the financing costs – which were previously pegged at $300 million.
Small business owners, many of whom are currently adapting to recent state and local increases to the minimum wage and facing the prospect of even more dramatic mandatory wage increases in the future, may this summer be hit even harder with yet another government wage mandate.
A proposed revision to federal labor regulations, which would make salaried employees earning up to $50,440 eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay, is currently making its way through the federal bureaucracy.
