MEMORANDUM

DATE:   May 28, 2026

TO:         Brian Kane, Chair of Administration and Finance Committee

FROM:   Tegin Teich, Executive Director of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization

RE:         State Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Director Goals Update, February–May

This memo includes updates on progress towards state fiscal year (SFY) 2026 goals established in my May 2025 self-evaluation as the Executive Director of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO). Because of the timing of the MPO’s Administration and Finance (A&F) Committee meetings, these updates cover some of the third and fourth quarters of the SFY (February 2026 through the beginning of May 2026). This memo does not include information about the review itself; the SFY 2026 goals set in my evaluation process were documented in a prior memo posted on November 13, 2025, for the November 20, 2025, A&F Committee meeting.  

Identity and Awareness

The goals that I established in this category were

• Continue to explore the feasibility of advancing a branding initiative and enhancing the agency’s public presence
• Maintain similar levels of participation in professional development opportunities (primarily, conferences)

The redesigned internal Boston Region MPO intranet is anticipated to launch in June 2026. Although internally facing, this launch is an important step in the agency’s broader web modernization work, enabling staff to begin using and testing the same platform supporting the redesigned public website. The public website continues to be an important opportunity to strengthen the MPO’s public presence and reintroduce the agency’s work to stakeholders and the public. The extended timeline reflects the substantial level of effort required to develop new and updated content that is accurate, accessible, and useful to public audiences.

Our public presence has also been enhanced by continued opportunities to share our work with various stakeholder groups. For example, in April, staff provided a briefing on our roadway pricing work to the Transportation for Massachusetts coalition. We are now seeking other opportunities to provide briefings to advocates and other stakeholders while continuing to invest in the recently launched Community Advisory Council. The Council is now an important additional opportunity to bring previously marginalized voices into the MPO’s decision-making.

In addition to public-facing identity work, staff continued to participate in professional development opportunities that strengthen the agency’s technical capacity, leadership, and ability to communicate MPO work to partners and the public.

These opportunities included attendance at regional and national conferences, internal training, and cohort-based learning opportunities. I attended the biennial technical symposium for the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations (AMPO). An MPO staff member serves on AMPO’s policy committee and attended the AMPO fly-in to Washington, DC, in the spring. The fly-in is an opportunity to learn more about the upcoming transportation re-authorization and speak with and educate elected officials’ staff about the role of MPOs. We continue to send a staff person to the National Association of City Transportation Officials Annual Conference to share best practices on multimodal design. We continue the practice implemented last fiscal year requiring staff to report back in some way—through a presentation, blog post, workshop, among other possibilities—to share something they gained from the professional development opportunity with others.

We also held internal training and coaching. In April, we engaged an accessibility consultant to provide an all-staff training on accessibility principles. This one-hour training aimed to establish a baseline understanding and reframe how we think about accessibility as an inclusive approach to all of our work, with all staff responsible for supporting those principles.

One of our staff has also been enrolled in a Vision Zero/safety course at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Her participation will bolster our effective execution of two additional Safe Streets and Roads for All grants to improve safety in our region.

In addition, two cohorts (groups of two to four staff) have completed AMPO Institute training courses and will report to all staff on the value of those courses. We have a third cohort in process and launched a fourth in May. The courses include an overview of MPOs and deeper dives into federal funding and long-range plan development.

Finally, the leadership team (executive and directors) is engaging in a coaching process facilitated by YW Boston, a consulting and training team with a focus on equity and inclusion. The aim of this work is to improve our performance as a team in effectively collaborating and decision-making, modeling an inclusive and resilient culture. This coaching includes one-on-one interviews and two separate retreats, one of which was completed in April.

Programs and Services

The goals that I established in this category were

• Continue process of refining multiyear plans (MYP)
• Develop a draft agency action plan to help guide Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) development
• Advance concept of a pipeline of planning to project funding through technical assistance and planning work

In April, the Boston Region MPO received feedback from our federal partners at Federal Highway Administration recommending that our Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) narrative be more deliverable-focused. This feedback was consistent with what was shared with all MPOs across the state. The existence of our recently developed and updated MYPs positioned us well to respond and implement the recommendation.

This spring we continued to advance the first of four strategic initiatives (part of our agency action plan) with the goal of identifying gaps and opportunities to increase the connection between the MPO’s planning work and projects supported with federal funding. Two managers are collaborating across agency verticals to develop a work plan and identify gaps. The initial gaps analysis was shared with a subset of the leadership team in April. Next steps include discussing the findings and potential strategies with other teams and at our coordination meetings with all managers and directors in May.

The MPO’s readiness policy was successfully incorporated into the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) development process in March and April, resulting in a draft TIP that is more realistic about project delivery. As a reminder, that policy requires projects to be at certain stages of design to qualify for certain years of the TIP. It is a significant step towards supporting accountability in advancing projects, eventually leading to reestablishing capacity in TIP outer years to fund new projects. That pipeline is increasing through the MPO’s technical assistance and design support.

In April, the MPO installed its first demonstration project to reduce exposure to extreme heat on facilities where people walk, bike, and roll. This is the first of several demonstration projects prioritized through data analysis and planning, funded primarily through the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) and federal Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grants. They represent a direct link between the MPO’s planning and recommendations to constructed projects.

Governance

The goals that I established in this category were

• Continue to explore ways to expand board engagement in staff work
• New TIP policy implemented in the development of the 2027–31 TIP

Within the timeframe covered by this memo, we facilitated an in-person meeting to support enhanced board member coordination during decisions on the final scenario of regional target program projects in the TIP. We started this practice last year. Staff are planning ways to include both the Community Advisory Council and the board in workshops related to the LRTP. Those workshops will likely be scheduled in May.

As referenced in the prior section, the TIP policy has been implemented. MassDOT provided alternative technical guidance on the readiness of two projects. All other projects were treated consistently with the policy, programmed in appropriate years for delivery based on their stage of design. We will continue to monitor project readiness and encourage project proponents to share these requirements with their stakeholders, leaders, and partner agencies.

Organizational Structure and Staffing

The goal that I established in this category was

• Complete a full refresh of the compensation plan

We continue our work to refresh the compensation plan. Over the last several months, we revised and confirmed base job descriptions and required experience levels. These materials have been sent to the compensation consultant for a market check, which will compare our job descriptions against a range of jobs in public and non-public databases to confirm that we are grading them appropriately. In parallel, we are reviewing the narrative of the compensation plan and will engage the consultant to support staff-wide education on the plan development and implementation of the plan, as requested by staff.

The last several months have also included the agency’s annual performance assessment and salary adjustment cycle, which is relevant in this category. In March, we solicited staff feedback on their supervisors, which was incorporated into supervisors’ performance assessments. In April, supervisors completed performance assessments across the agency, making recommendations on the types of salary adjustment (baseline, good, exceptional, or promotional). In May, I developed an agency-wide salary adjustment proposal, which will then be presented to the Executive Director of the Office of Transportation Planning in accordance with our contractual requirements with MassDOT.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The goal that I established in this category was

• Support an internal working group in identifying improvements for staff recruitment and onboarding

We continue to work with the agency’s internal Ideas Group to implement the recommendations from the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) action plan and review of our policies and procedures carried out by YW. Initial improvements have focused on the performance assessment process, including making the supervisor feedback survey anonymous and inviting staff to submit three accomplishments to their supervisors before performance assessments were drafted. These changes are intended to increase the impact of employee feedback and support a more consistent, inclusive assessment process. The Ideas Group will continue to explore opportunities in this space in the coming year.

In addition, Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), the MPO’s fiduciary agent that provides human resources support to the MPO, has recently hired a DEIA Specialist. This staff member is engaging with the MPO’s Ideas Group to support its facilitation and help advance continued implementation of DEIA-related recommendations.

Funding and Operations

The goals that I established in this category were

• Operate neither with a significant deficit or surplus (0-5 percent)
• Maintain stability for existing staff in the context of fiscal uncertainty

This quarter’s work in funding and operations focused on advancing competitive grant agreements, pursuing diversified funding sources, maintaining staff stability, and identifying one-time funding opportunities that can support agency priorities.

Although we are still navigating the challenges of initiating federal grant agreements, the federal fiscal year (FFY) 2024 SS4A federal grant agreement was fully executed in March. We have begun working with MassDOT to finalize the agreement for the matching funds. With this $9.4 million grant, a portion of which will be for MPO staff time, we will collaborate with municipalities to design and implement a variety of safety interventions. These include quick-build traffic-calming projects such as speed humps and high-visibility crosswalks. We will also support municipal planning projects, crash analyses, roadway safety audits, and community engagement campaigns.

To continue to pursue diversified funding sources, in March the MPO applied for a second MVP Action Grant, funded through the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, to build on our NO-HEAT project examining the intersection of extreme heat and active transportation. The $1.5 million proposal involves expanding our analysis of heat-related health and mobility impacts and providing technical assistance to municipalities to pilot and evaluate heat mitigation strategies across the region. Out of the total grant, $500,000 is anticipated to support MPO staff time.

We continue to work with our federal partners to sign an agreement for the $1.5 million Prioritization Process Pilot Program grant that was awarded last calendar year. That grant will allow the MPO to engage stakeholders and members of the public in updates to project evaluation criteria, project scoring and prioritization processes, and subsequent decision-making processes for the TIP and LRTP. It will also support additional opportunities for public engagement during the project evaluation processes.

Beyond diversifying our funding, we are working to maintain stability by supporting our staff through policy and procedural improvements and implementing effective recruitment processes. We have now filled vacancies in human resources and operations capacity and continue to recruit for additional needed staff. We are also assessing several staffing scenarios for the coming fiscal year. Even though formula funding levels are flat, natural attrition as well as the influx of several years of competitive grant funding provide the opportunity to consider targeted expansion. Still, we are planning in uncertainty, considering the potential loss of competitive grant funding and tracking progress toward the next transportation re-authorization, which will establish new federal formula funding levels.

Finally, we requested access to federal and MassDOT matching funds categorized as “de-obligated PL funds” for FFY 2027. Federal partners have encouraged the MPO to spend down the $931,263 federal balance that MassDOT reported as available to the Boston Region MPO through prior Combined 3C, Section 5303, and PL contracts.

Our proposals included eight one-time investments, including contracting with consultants to carry out additional accessibility training; final close-out support for our website redesign; a data and technology strategy, including accessibility remediation for interactive digital content; and several studies, including the Routable Mobility Networks Phase 2, Opportunities to Support Transit-Oriented Development, a Boston Region Evacuation Routes Study, and consulting support for predictive and exploratory modeling tools. Our proposals also included bringing on a one-time intern for several months. The full set of proposals would have spent down the majority of the federal balance and would have required about $185,000 in matching funds from MassDOT. Facing fiscal constraints, MassDOT was able to approve $31,400 of matching funds, which would enable us to leverage $157,000 of combined federal and state match. We are currently revising our proposal to meet the scale of the funding available. We will likely prioritize one to two of the eight proposals, scaling them based on the available funding. Once approval is finalized, we will amend the selected proposals into our FFY 2027 UPWP and operating budget.