A searchable database of the complete Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) payroll for 2008--including name, titles, base pay rates and total pay received by 78,393 employees--is now available at www.SeeThroughNY.net, the government transparency website sponsored by the Empire Center for New York State Policy.

More than 10 percent of the MTA’s workforce--8,214 individuals in all--took home $100,000 or more in total pay, including overtime. The MTA’s six-figure club included:

•    10 employees who earned more than $250,000, averaging $102,000 over their base salaries;
•    44 employees who earned between $200,000 and $250,000, averaging $89,000 over their base salaries;
•    600 employees who earned between $150,000 and $200,000; and
•    7,560 individuals who earned between $100,000 and $150,000.

Eleven of the 654 employees who earned more than $150,000 in 2008 were Long Island Railroad car repairmen who earned an average of $206,000—which was $143,000 over their average base pay rate of $63,000.  Other popular titles in the $150,000-and-over category included:

•    62 Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad conductors who averaged $83,000 over their base salaries which averaged only $82,000;
•    40 police officers averaging $79,000 over their average base pay of $90,000;
•    39 gang foremen averaging $87,000 over their average base pay of $79,300; and
•    30 Long Island Railroad engineers averaging $103,000 over their average base pay of $73,000. 

The payroll also included 279 MTA Bus employees for whom the authority did not provide the job titles requested by the Empire Center under the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).  The median salary for this named but untitled group of employees was just over $74,000, including 32 individuals who earned more than $100,000 last year.   

SeeThroughNY, launched in July 2008, also provides searchable payroll databases for New York State, New York City’s municipal government and for 18 other state public authorities, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  Also posted are teachers’ union and superintendent contracts for 733 school districts, legislative pork barrel member items, and operations spending by both houses of the state Legislature.  The website has attracted more than a million unique visitors since its launch.

The Albany-based Empire Center is a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, one of the nation’s leading non-profit 501(c)3 think tanks.

(Tables listing the 100 highest-paid employees of the MTA and the 100 highest-paid MTA Bus employees whose titles were not provided by the authority are available here.)