Reports of overtime abuse, a call for a prosecutor and strained labor relations, all intermingled with a fiscal crisis at New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, produced an explosive emergency board meeting on Friday.
The hastily called late-afternoon get-together evolved into shouting and name-calling between management and labor factions at MTA headquarters in Lower Manhattan after board member Lawrence Schwartz called for an independent prosecutor to probe overtime and pension abuses.
The fireworks came amid calls for the state-run MTA — one of the largest municipal bond issuers with roughly $41 billion in debt — to improve from within have paralleled those for reliable funding streams. The overtime fracas also comes as the MTA prepares for another round of contract talks.
“The MTA continues to face steep fiscal challenges and a bleak future forecast,” said Chairman Patrick Foye, citing projections of a $1 billion operating deficit by 2020.
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Many of the highest-paid MTA employees worked for the Long Island Rail Road. According to Empire Center, a “chief measurement officer” took home $461,000 last year — more than the MTA's New York City Transit chief, Andy Byford — including about $300,000 in overtime.
“That’s almost physically impossible,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. “To make that kind of overtime, you don’t eat, you don’t sleep, you don’t go home.”
The MTA has been using its own police to monitor overtime, a move Foye called temporary, and the authority’s inspector general is also investigating.
“I support the MTA proceeding with retaining special counsel to conduct an investigation of the timekeeping and attendance systems of the MTA and overtime abuse,” Foye said after the meeting.
Foye added that Friday that five LIRR employees face sanctions for overtime abuse.
Board members John Samuelsen and Vincent Tessitore, both labor appointees, launched highly emotional broadsides at MTA management.
“These are all management choices," said Samuelsen, a nonvoting member and Transport Workers Union international president. "If you don't want to give us overtime, then don’t give us overtime. Stop the hyperbole, stop the high theater, stop the nonsense.”
The controversy has also cast a glare on some of the antiquated practices at the MTA, one of the nation’s oldest transit systems.
According to Foye, consultant Alix Partners is working with the MTA on a “rapid rollout” of a modern time-and-attendance system across all divisions. Alix Partners is also advising the MTA on a forensic audit and a restructuring of the authority, which is part of the state fiscal 2020 budget that enacted congestion pricing and provided other revenue streams.
“What is this, the 470th consultant that you’re hiring?” said Samuelsen.
Board member and city transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg warned against hiring more consultants.
“We have a hell of a lot of them now,” she said.
