Facing a growing storm of outrage over an overtime scandal, Gov. Andrew Cuomo opened the door Tuesday to possibly demanding work rule changes from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s unions as part of upcoming contract talks.
“The contract has to be renegotiated, to the extent there are undue benefits to the workforce then they should be taken out,” Cuomo told WNYC radio’s Brian Lehrer. “I have no problem negotiating fair, honest, accountable union contracts.”
The Cuomo-controlled MTA is struggling with deficits that budget watchdogs say are driven in part by decades-old work rules and inefficiencies codified in the agency’s labor agreements, which are up for renegotiation this year.
The agency recently hiked tunnel and bridge tolls and subway and commuter railroad fares in a bid to raise $289 million to fill the budget shortfall for 2019, triggering a wave of renewed complaints from riders about service.
That anger was compounded by a series of stories in The Post that highlighted the extraordinary overtime payouts scored by employees of one of the MTA’s commuter systems, the Long Island Rail Road.
The authority’s top earner, LIRR chief measurements operator Thomas Caputo, made $461,646 in 2018 before he retired — including $344,147 thanks to 3,800 hours of overtime alone.
Another LIRR employee, track worker Marco Pazmino, more than quadrupled his base salary and took home $256,177 in 2018, thanks to an astonishing 4,157 hours of overtime.
Nine of the top 10 overtime earners at the MTA worked for the LIRR, documents obtained by the conservative think tank Empire Center for Public Policy show.
In response, MTA chairman and CEO Pat Foye last month ordered the authority’s inspector general to probe the massive bills and told the heads of the subway, bus and commuter railroad divisions to review their labor practices.
Additionally, federal prosecutors in Manhattan and county prosecutors in Queens are eyeing the agency’s overtime practices.
All told, the MTA spent $1.3 billion on overtime in 2018, up from $1.2 billion in 2017.
© 2019 New York Post
You may also like
Policy analyst: Cuomo wrong to write-off nursing home criticism as political conspiracy
“The importance of discussing this and getting the true facts out is to understand what did and didn’t happen so we can learn from it in case this happens again,” Hammond said. Read More
Faced with $10B deficit, MTA says it’s eyeing cutting overtime spending
Alfonso Castillo
The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is adding urgency to the agency’s efforts to curtail overtime numbers that critics say remain alarmingly high.
The MTA said at Wed Read More
The good, the bad and the ugly in Cuomo’s budget
“We are at the early stages of what shapes up as the biggest state and city fiscal crisis since the Great Depression,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “Borrowing and short-term cuts aside, the budget doesn’t chart any clear path out of it.” Read More
Editorial: Cuomo’s problematic Medicaid maneuvers
“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the fiscally conservative Empire Center, told The Times. Read More
Gov. Cuomo’s Lawsuit on Pres. Trump’s Tax Cuts Dismissed
But according to the Empire Center, a non-profit group based in Albany, the overall impact of the Trump tax cuts actually benefited most state residents. Read More
NYS Healthcare Costs Rise Amid Report Of Pay-To-Play Allegations
Earlier this year, another fiscal watchdog group, The Empire Center, found that Cuomo’s budget office had delayed a $1.7 billion Medicaid payment from the previous fiscal year into the current fiscal year. Because of the delay, the governor was able to keep within a self imposed 2% yearly spending cap. Read More
After Hospitals’ Donation to New York Democrats, a $140 Million Payout
“It’s everything that’s wrong with Albany in one ugly deal,” said Bill Hammond, a health policy expert at the nonpartisan Empire Center who first noticed the budgetary trick. “The governor was able to unilaterally direct a billion dollars to a major interest group while secretly accepting its campaign cash and papering over a massive deficit in the Medicaid program.” Read More
Comptroller warns of financial distress at the MTA, and the MTA goes on a hiring spree
According to Ken Girardin, a labor analyst at the right-leaning Empire Center for Public Policy, every new police officer will cost the MTA roughly $56,000, which means the new personnel would initially cost the MTA roughly $28 million a year.
Those costs should rapidly increase over time, as police salaries rapidly increase. Read More