As New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli continues his ongoing series of MTA audits, he’s starting to get to the juicy bits. Late last week, DiNapoli released his examination of Metro-North’s now-defunct On-Board Services Unit and found that employees who were supposed to monitor train conditions and crew performances were not doing their jobs. The unit was rife with no-shows and poor job performance while one particularly egregious case of nepotism may have run afoul of the New York State Public Officers Law.
The audit, available here as a PDF, has already led to some changes. The MTA, accused of offering no oversight for the On-Board Services Unit, has since disbanded the team, and the matter has been referred to the Office of the Inspector General for further investigation. It’s possible that criminal charges could be filed.
“The public got taken for a ride,” DiNapoli said. “When workers in this unit did bother to show up for their jobs, they did shoddy work or personal tasks when they should have been ensuring that trains were operating safely and smoothly. The MTA needs to do more to tighten up accountability. I am pleased that this audit brought an end to this situation.”
What exactly did the audit find? DiNapoli’s office provided a summary:
The audit covered the period January 1, 2009 through June 20, 2011 and examined whether employees in Metro North’s On-Board Services Unit fulfilled their duties and performed their assigned tasks. As of July 2011, the unit consisted of a supervisor and five employees who earned a total annual compensation of $832,676.
Auditors and investigators examined 300 rides that were expected to be taken and documented, of which 29 percent (89 rides) had no logs to support that any work was done. In 14 percent of all rides, staffers were not on the job, though they were scheduled to work and were paid for those hours. None of the 211 logs that did exist reported any significant performance or safety issue, raising serious questions about the quality of oversight provided by the unit.
Staff was supposed to take six train trips daily to work an eight-hour day, but auditors found that staff averaged only four train trips daily. Auditors and investigators estimate that four unit staff members were paid in excess of $170,000 annually for work that might not have been performed.
Supervision was also almost non-existent, with no log of time and attendance records, no observation of staffers on trains and no written schedule of trains to be monitored. Auditors and investigators also found that staffers surfed the internet during work hours, including spending 6.5 hours on firearm sites and Google and 5 hours on various commercial sites such as Chuck E. Cheese. Reviews of cell phone usage found little communication between staff members and their supervisor but did find out-of-state calls and calls home.
So essentially, Metro-North employees earning an average of $138,000 simply did not do their jobs. When they did, they did a poor job and tried to exploit the situation for family members. The audit found, in fact, that an assistant V.P. hired a family member at a salary of $84,700 when the candidate ranked lower than two others and was supposed to be paid under $60,000.
I’ve always said that DiNapoli’s audits are more obvious than they should be, and I don’t think one is any exception. Corruption and croneyism have ruled the day at the region’s railroads for time immemorial. But now, we see the impact this has on public perception and political beliefs. The MTA has worked hard under a few chairmen to get its house in order, but it’s such a mess that these stories continue to crop up in division after division. For progress to be made in terms of funding, Albany will have to trust the MTA with the dollars. Right now would you if you were in their shoes?
10 comments
TWU local 100 and NYCT will get the blame.
Not a fan of TWU 100, but the big drama is always with that union, whereas the biggest ripoffs are in the suburban services. But the blame and consequences will be directed to NYC. The political consequences: NYC is ripping off the suburbs!
In any event, the LIRR has always been worse than MetroNorth. I wonder if there is a political link: ie. the honchos of a given party getting their people in there, the way the Staten Island Democrats controlled the ferry before that guy wrecked it and killed a bunch of people.
Speaking of the blame, nycpat, one of the top union priorities with pension reform, which the unions “won,” is keeping the ability to spike pension benefits with overtime in the last year of work. And yet those in the best position to inflate their last year’s pay and pensions and managers and politicos in unions like this.
Is the union position that it doesn’t matter who is doing the ripping off as long as more is paid for less? Of did the political class itself work to keep pension spiking in for future hires?
Argh. Those in the best position to spike their pensions are managers and politicos in units like this, because they control their own schedules.
good point, and good discussion the both of ye.
I would suspect that the LI Republican machine has or had a lot of say in the LIRR. D’Amato’s nephew is a lawyer for the MTA.
Untill very recently hourlies at NYCT had overtime caps so spiking like you see among cops isn’t as common or egregious. Some people approaching retirement will work six days a week and pick penalty jobs, but others maintain a more comfortable pace. My understanding is that NYCT pension is based on the average of the three highest out of the last five years. Spiking, especially for Train and Bus Operators might not be worth it. In my case I’ll probably beworking til I drop. To complete 25 years in an operatioal title is no mean feat.
“My understanding is that NYCT pension is based on the average of the three highest out of the last five years.”
Unless NYCT has different rules than everyone else, it was changed from the average of the previous three years to the last year in 2000, makign pension spiking abuses much more likely.
It isn’t just OT. Cronies can be appointed to higher positions, hide in an office for a year, and then retire with a pension that in some cases cost $hundreds of thousands more. That doesn’t benefit rank and file theives.
For new hires, Cuomo proposed eliminating OT for the purpose of calculating pensions, which still would not have solved the problem of the one-year promotion. He had to back down and allow a 15 percent pension increase based on OT. And in any event, any changes for new hires would not affect the disaster of the next 10 years.
This is why the city, state, and feds only agreed to fund the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway. Let the MTA show they can actually finish the first phase, and then they can get funding for the remaining phases. Well, enough work is underway that they could start campaigning for funds for phase 2.
The MTA has got to do a lot more to clean its fiscal house, and once that matter is over, when it would have more respect from the government and the public.
Criminal charges should be filed and people need to be fired from these positions.
Are these the employees who rode the trains to check track conditions? I once saw a pair of MNR employees who did just that. They explaned by checking how smooth the ride was, they could make the determination if the track conditions were up to par. I saw them several years ago going between Hastings & Dobbs Ferry & they would go back & forth several times a day.
No, these were the people going around to make sure the conductors were collecting tickets and seat-checking correctly, and most importantly I hear, making sure conductors had their hats on.
I don’t think that the MTA is working too hard to get its house in order. They need look no further than MTAHQ for the same cretin/do nothings that still work there today that worked there for decades. And that’s not just my opinion. People at HQ are well aware of who these people are.