Gov. Maura Healey said more leadership changes will happen at the MBTA after a manager found to be working out of state was fired and four others who live hundreds of miles away were told to be in Boston more often.
“We actually removed one individual,” Healey said. “And there will be other changes.”
That employee, according to a Healey spokesperson, is James “Jay” Neider, chief of capital programs for the MBTA, who was fired last month.
Neider owns homes in Millsboro, Del. and Gilbert, Ariz., property records show. According to a Boston Globe report, Neider also spent a lot of time in Hawaii and Wisconsin, where phone records indicate some of his family members live.
Hired in 2019, his job consisted of overseeing large capital projects. Neider was paid more than $300,000 last year, with bonuses tacked onto his roughly $275,000 salary. Despite working less than four months this year, he raked in nearly $125,000, when factoring in his base pay, “other pay” and a roughly $20,000 buyout, according to the state comptroller’s office.
The Herald has tried to reach Neider for comment, but messages were not immediately returned.
Neider is the only remote manager to be terminated so far, but Healey told reporters “more leadership changes will happen,” referring to the shake-ups she’s already implemented so far, with new MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng, Transportation Safety Chief Patrick Lavin, and three new T board members.
“I just cannot have a situation where I have members in management not on the job,” Healey said. “It is a lousy signal to other state workers who are showing up every day working hard, and that’s what I expect of my team, across all agencies, across all departments.”
The MBTA, at the direction of Healey, told four other out-of-state capital programs employees that “they needed to be in the office three days a week and had two weeks to make the necessary arrangements for this requirement,” T spokesperson Joe Pesaturo said.
Pesaturo did not provide the names of these four employees, but shared their job titles with the Herald, which verified the names of three managers.
Karli Del Rossi, chief of staff for capital programs, owns a home in Bonita Springs, Fla.; Charles Thorn, deputy chief of capital programs, owns a home in Maywood, N.J. and Maysoon Tawfik, chief of capital programs strategy and innovations, has a home in Manhattan, N.Y., according to land records.
Del Rossi was paid $143,054 last year; Thorn made $174,000 after starting mid-year in 2022, but has an annual pay rate of $232,000; and Tawfik’s salary was $236,295 last year, according to the state comptroller’s office.
The fourth employee warned to work in Boston more often was the CPSI system administrator, Pesaturo said.
“The T is currently reviewing next steps with capital employees to ensure they are able to meet the shared capital programs requirement to be physically present in the office three days a week,” Pesaturo said in a statement. “The T cannot comment further on personnel matters.”
He did say, however, that the MBTA is in the process of reviewing how and when employees work remotely, “balancing the needs of in-person work with remote work.”
“Maintaining safe, reliable transportation is the T’s No. 1 priority and employee schedules must be designed to best serve operational and customer needs,” Pesaturo said.
Healey said she expects all state employees to show up every day, work hard and work with one another.
“We’re going to have to do the work on the HR front to bring more people in,” Healey said. “But as with everything, I’m not going to hide the ball on anything, and when things are brought up and brought to my attention, we’re going to move quickly.”