Second Ave. Sagas

Category: MTA Economics

  • Inside the origins of the MTA’s debt burden

    City Limits, the online magazine focusing on NYC civic life, has published the final installment of its three-part series focusing on the MTA’s financial problems. Today’s piece focuses on the MTA’s debt burden brought about by its massive five-year capital plans. For those familiar with the MTA’s economic picture, Jake Mooney’s piece treads familiar ground, but it does an excellent job exploring the origins of the MTA’s debt.

    Mooney summarizes why debt payments will reach $2.5 billion in 2014 and how Albany and City Hall are to blame: “While federal government support for capital projects has remained strong, city and state contributions over the years have dwindled. To make up the difference, the authority has increasingly borrowed money by issuing bonds, and that borrowing has taken a toll. The MTA’s outstanding debt, which was $13 billion in 2000, had reached $31 billion by this past July.”

    As Mooney notes, without congestion pricing or bridge tolls — two plans that would generate revenue while encouraging more efficient travel — the system is bound to be mired in financial troubles for the foreseeable future. “They’re really just kicking the can down the road,” John Petro of the Drum Major Institute said to City Limits. “It’s going to mean more pain for riders. All the tinkering we do and belt-tightening is not really going to address the problem. Hopefully voters will realize that the source of their grief is not this nameless, faceless authority, but the people that they vote for.” [City Limits]

  • DiNapoli audit targets overtime but says nothing new

    For the past eight months, MTA officials have waged a war against overtime. In December, CEO and Chairman Jay Walder highlighted the overtime issue, and again in May, he spoke about how the authority will try to limit overtime shifts in order to save money. In between, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli urged the MTA to rein in the overtime.

    It is no great surprise, then, that DiNapoli’s latest audit of the MTA reveals a “culture of acceptance” that has enabled what he terms overtime abuse. It’s hardly a groundbreaking finding, but it reinforces what Walder has said about the MTA’s work rules. “Uncontrolled overtime has been the rule rather than the exception at the MTA,” DiNapoli said. “The MTA is cutting services, raising fares and tolls and laying-off employees, but it should be doing more to control expenses. Overtime shouldn’t equate to twice someone’s annual salary. When scores of employees are earning more in overtime than they make in salary, it’s time for the MTA to change the culture of acceptance to a culture of accountability.”

    The audit simply reinforced Walder’s numbers. DiNapoli claims that 140 employees were able to more than double their salaries last year by exploiting the MTA’s overtime rules. Most of the workers were Metro-North or Long Island Rail Road workers, but some came from Transit as well. His press release comes with a table, and the audit — available here as a PDF — delves further into the agency breakdown.

    On a case-by-case basis, DiNapoli found widespread overtime, as he would at any large organization. More than 3200 workers received overtime pay equal to at least half of their annual salaries, he said. Overtime accrued as workers replaced those out on sick leave even if replacements weren’t needed; and he found “unjustified or undocumented work” in 77 percent of overtime billing.

    Yet despite the fact that overtime billing has risen by 32 percent over the last four years and despite his findings, DiNapoli identified just $56 million in overtime savings. Mostly, he said, the MTA should adopt practices it already said it would implement. He urged them to “match work schedules to work opportunities to reduce the need for overtime; restrict overtime budgets to specific targets for overtime reduction; and follow up on 59 questionable overtime payments identified by auditors.” As Comptroller’s reports go, this one is a pretty tame one, and a ten percent cost savings hardly seems worth the price of the audit.

    For its part, the MTA stressed how these findings came as no surprise, and it reiterated its pledge to control overtime costs. “The comptroller’s audit confirms what we reported earlier this year and reinforces the need for the aggressive actions we’re taking to reduce unnecessary overtime,” the agency said in a statement. “We will do our part, but active participation from our labor unions is the only way to make the type of impact we all want.”

    Interestingly, the news coverage of the audit revealed more surprising results than DiNapoli’s report did. As WNYC’s Matthew Schuerman noted, the MTA has had to spend more on overtime due to station agent dismissals than it had anticipated, and some union leaders claim that the MTA now would have saved money by keeping the axed agents on board. The authority says this is a temporary problem that has “persisted” longer than expected, but it is no where to be found in DiNapoli’s report.

    This is DiNapoli’s 13th audit of the MTA since 2007, and by now, he’s charting familiar territory. The MTA knows it needs to control overtime, and it knew this reality well before DiNapoli started working on this report. If the Comptroller wants to sink his teeth into something juicy, he should examine the organizational structure of the authority as a whole. Otherwise, telling us what we already know doesn’t advance the dialogue.

  • What future the MTA’s key payroll tax?

    During rough economic times, politicians angling for reelection like nothing more than a tax to serve as a good whipping boy. Since the MTA has long held that unwanted position at the bottom of the New York political totem pole, the unpopular, but necessary, payroll tax is beginning to attract everyone’s ire. While neither Andrew Cuomo nor Rick Lazio have voiced any support for the payroll tax, GOP lawmakers are starting to make noise about a repeal.

    In Newsday today, transit writer Alberto Castillo explores how state Republicans are calling for an end to the tax (link is subscription only). Well, perhaps saying they want an end to the tax is premature. Rather, they’re beating the MTA/forensic audit drum. Unless the authority agrees to a forensic audit — something to which it has been quite willing to submit — these representatives wish to deny the MTA its next payroll mobility tax check. “We want every paper clip, every pencil. We want to know every expense of the MTA and its subsidiaries,” Dean Murray, from Patchogue, said. “Before you turn to the taxpayers to bail you out, you should look where you could save money.”

    Castillo has more priceless quotes from state representatives who do not view it as their duty to mind the MTA, a state authority. One representative from Glen Head claimed that, in the words of Castillo, “the MTA wouldn’t need that money if it kept its house in order.” Michael Montesano said, “It’s just easier for them to go to the taxpayer and to the State Legislature and just ask for more money. And if you don’t give it to them, there’s the threat of more service cuts.”

    Of course, there’s the threat of more service cuts or fare hikes. If the state, the body that granted the MTA a corporate charter and mass transit oversight, doesn’t deign to fund transit, then the MTA can balance its books through only fare hikes or service cuts. This isn’t complicated policy; it’s simple economics.

    For its part, the MTA says it “welcomes” an audit and, in fact, is the subject of numerous audits conducted at both the state and city level. “At the same time, this current administration has undertaken the most aggressive cost-cutting initiative in the history of the MTA, leading to more than $700 million in recurring annual cost savings,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said to Newsday.

    A forensic audit is all well and good, but what will be the point? Thomas DiNapoli will discover that, shockingly enough, the MTA wastes money. He’ll discover that the authority has redundant staffing levels, that its corporate structure was built through combining six different entities into one with little to no consolidation. He’ll find wasteful policies and poor capital oversight on the part of the state, and a state-mandated bidding process that doesn’t leave the MTA with the best possible contractors.

    Of course, lawmakers won’t be satisfied with a forensic audit. If given the chance, they’ll move to repeal the payroll tax entirely. That’s why Nassau County and the Town of Chester, among other municipalities, are joining a suit to halt the payroll tax. If successful — which they probably won’t be — what would happen?

    As I’ve mentioned over the past few days, the MTA is relying on the payroll tax for up to $1.5 billion a year over the next four years. In 2011, the payroll tax is expected to be over 27 percent of total government subsidies for the MTA’s operating budget. Were the state to repeal it without an adequate replacement source of revenue, the consequences would be disastrous. The MTA would either have to raise fares by 30 percent, slash service to levels never seen before in New York or begin to contemplate defaulting on its payments.

    So politicians can beat their anti-tax drums. Republicans can speak out against it; Andrew Cuomo doesn’t have to embrace it. But without this necessary evil, the MTA won’t be a fiscally viable agency. Give me congestion pricing. Give me East River Bridge Tolls. Just don’t take away the payroll tax.

  • What future the capital program?

    The MTA unviled its four-year budget plan last week, and inside of this document are a series of somewhat rosier projections than we’d expect. Despite a crushing deficit this year, if CEO and Chairman Jay Walder can realize all of his cost savings plans, the authority will run net cash balances in the black for 2010, 2011 and 2013 with significant but not too costly deficits in 2012 and 2014. To make these projections, the MTA had to rely on economic assumptions from the city and state, but in the past, these numbers haven’t been too far from reality.

    In the consolidated statement which features a line-by-line breakdown of MTA costs, one item jumps out at me. That is the authority’s dept service payments. Last year, the MTA made $1.4 billion in debt service payments and is on pace this year to see that number reach $1.8 billion before jumping up over $2 billion in subsequent years. By 2014, debt service will reach $2.555 billion, and it will consist of approximately 13 percent of the MTA’s annual expenses.

    Meanwhile, as debt service remains a significant annual cost on the operations ledger, the MTA is moving ahead with another five-year capital plan that will see the authority issues more revenue and construction bonds. Thus, these debt totals will not lessen or disappear from the ledger any time soon, and MTA Board members are growing leery of the capital spending. Every time we spend money on this capital plan, we’re increasing the debt, increasing the debt service, and this is like a time bomb here,” Andrew Saul, the authority’s vice chairman, said last week.

    Saul wasn’t the only board member to question the wisdom of maintaining debt-producing programs as the MTA struggles to close a budget gap. “We’re paying interest during the construction periods of projects in part from the fare box, so we are paying for capital with the fare box,” board member Doreen Frasca said. “That means that less money is dropping down to pay maintenance expenses. We’ve cut 20 percent out of many of the agency budgets. We certainly haven’t cut the capital budget by 20 percent.”

    For its part, the MTA defended its capital budget and noted that it had reduced its five-year plan by approximately $2 billion. “A series of five-year capital programs have revitalized our transit system,” the authority said in a statement. “While the more than $64 billion spent in that time has helped turn around our regional economy, maintaining and improving the 100-year-old transportation system is an ongoing need and we cannot afford to disinvest. The current $26.3 billion program reflects a nearly $2 billion reduction as the result of a comprehensive review of projects.”

    All of this begs an important question: What should the MTA do about its capital spending and the need to take on debt? Once upon a time, the state contributed more money annually to the MTA’s capital plan, and the authority didn’t have to take on the debt. But as New York’s finances went south, successive governors have pulled more funding and have urged the MTA to bond their projects instead. Some of those — such as new subway lines — can be bonded because the revenue from the increase in ridership will cover the debt service payments in the future. But other programs — such as State of Good Repair initiatives and other routine maintenance, upgrade and rolling stock proposals — are funded without that guarantee of future returns. People stop using the subways as the system breaks down but spending billions to maintain it doesn’t lead to an incremental jump in ridership.

    What the MTA can’t do is halt its capital program. It would be far too costly to cut back on maintenance and capital repairs while moving forward only on ambitious (and often delayed) expansion efforts only because the economics of bond issuances work out that way. The authority must make sure the system doesn’t slide into a state of unreliability because that would exert a huge cost on the city’s economy.

    So for now, the debt system stays as it is. Unless the government can find more money for capital investment, the authority will have to take on more debt, and we’ll be paying tomorrow for upgrades today. It’s not an ideal situation by any means, but when it comes to funding transit, what is these days?

  • After the fare hike vote, finger-pointing and funding proposals

    Now that the MTA Board has set in motion the next round of fare hikes, transit advocates have begun to lay out their positions on the MTA’s latest foray into the economic morass. While some people would prefer to lay the blame at the feet of Jay Walder and the rest of the authority, the truth is that Albany has dropped the ball. The legislature in November moved $143 million of dedicated MTA funds into the general fund, and the state’s tax accountants promised more revenue from the payroll tax than the MTA received. Today, fingers are pointed squarely at Albany, and a few groups are clamoring for better solutions.

    To highlight the MTA’s plight, the Empire State Transportation Alliance — a coalition of business, civic, labor and environmental organizations that support sound investment in public transportation — voiced its begrudging support for the fare hike. Praising the authority for its “substantial cuts to administration,” the alliance stressed how “the MTA’s financial problems are real.” The organization’s co-chair summed up ESTA’s position. “We support the MTA’s decision move ahead with this scheduled fare increase,” Bob Yaro, also president of the Regional Plan Association. “The alternative would be another disastrous round of service cuts on top of the recent cuts that were necessitated by the Legislature’s decision to divert $143 million in dedicated MTA tax revenues to the state’s general fund.”

    Albany’s failures were a key theme to the various statements from advocates and officials from around the spectrum. Paul Steely White, head of Transportation Alternatives, expressed his hope that voters would hold Assembly representatives and State Senators responsible for the MTA’s financial mess. After all, these politicians are the ones who are so cavalier when it comes to transit funding. “The riding public is footing more and more of the bill to keep our transit system running, and all the while the services they rely on are disappearing before their very eyes,” he said. “If our elected officials in Albany think the riding public is going to stomach massive service cuts and a whopping fare hike during an election year, they’ve got another thing coming.”

    Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, also stressed voter accountability. “You can’t just blame the MTA,” she said. “Elected officials who simply point fingers are dodging their responsibility to ensure our region’s transit service remains safe, affordable, and reliable. Voters angry about the recent service cuts, especially bus riders on Long Island, should ask candidates how they plan on dealing with the MTA’s financial crisis.”

    The more intriguing calls though were from those advocating for a pricing or tolling solution. The MTA, as Slevin said, should not keep foisting more fares on riders while others — drivers — also enjoy the “congestion busting benefits of our transit system.” Many of these influential voices called for some sort of tolling or congestion plan. “Everyone who benefits from a healthy transit system should help pay for it,” Kevin Corbett, co-chair, ESTA, said. “We understand the short-term need to raise fares and stave off further reductions in service but Albany must return funding taken from the transit system and end the practice of shuffling dedicated MTA tax revenues. New, long term revenues such as tolling must be considered as severe shortfalls in capital and operating funding are on the horizon.”

    Gene Russianoff and the Straphangers, in a release decrying the fare hikes, wondered the same thing. “Why,” they asked, “should transit riders pay to cross the East River, but drivers on the East River bridges get a free ride?”

    At this late stage in the game, I’d support congestion pricing or East River bridge tolls. Congestion pricing targeted to peak hours and only the Manhattan Central Business District seems to be the more equitable of the pricing solutions. It targets the people who drive as a luxury while those who work at off-hours and commute over far distances that aren’t easily transit accessible won’t be expected to pay as much. Lower tolls could be used during off-hours to supplement congestion pricing or variable tolling could accomplish the same goals. The revenue should be placed in a lockbox that Albany cannot touch and that the MTA can use only for operations.

    Right now, though, the state’s politicians aren’t willing to take this step, and the rest of us pay. As Denise Richardson of the General Contractors Association of New York, said, “As we evaluate this fare increase proposal, we have to decide what cuts we will accept in lieu of it. No one likes higher fares, especially at a time when the economy has yet to fully recover and the job market remains weak, but we cannot expect the MTA to maintain the system and balance its books simply by making cuts in administrative personnel.”

  • What future the payroll tax?

    Now that the MTA has unveiled a four-year plan, it’s possible to see what level of government contributions the agency expects. Going forward — as page 19 of the PDF details — the authority will derive significant revenue from the payroll tax. By 2014, the authority believes it will draw in $1.5 billion from the payroll tax or nearly 27 percent of its total government subsidy. This controversial tax, then, is a vital one, and if the state’s candidates for governor have their way, the MTA may not see much from it.

    The Times Herald Record released polled Rick Lazio and Andrew Cuomo about their stances on hot-button issues. For MTA supporters, the news is dismaying. Lazio, the GOP candidate, says he’s for repealing the tax, and the Democrats’ nominee Andrew Cuomo offered up a little tap dance that basically says as much. “The MTA payroll tax is something we must revisit by coming up with a more equitable system,” he said. “We cannot place unfair burdens on counties with families and businesses struggling.”

    Neither candidate, as Mobilizing the Region noted, offered up a solution to the MTA’s budgetary woes nor did they identify a replacement revenue stream were the payroll tax to be abolished. The uncomfortable truth is that the new payroll tax fixes many of the inequities of the original proposal, and it remains a vitally necessary source of MTA funding. The region and its businesses would suffer more were the MTA cut $1.5 billion worth of service, and unless another revenue source is put into place, the state cannot afford to repeal the payroll tax.

  • In a four-year plan, fare hikes and labor concessions abound

    At its meeting this morning, the MTA Board voted to move forward on a plan to raise fares and tolls while slashing the number of station agents employed across the city. As the MTA has both the legal right and the economic need to raise fares in 2011, the vote was both expected and contested with transit advocates and labor officials protesting outside.

    At the meeting, CEO and Chairman Jay Walder put forward the MTA’s four-year budget plan. The authority does not plan to cut services further. However, to ensure that the budget stays on pace, the MTA will enact significant fare hikes in both 2011 and 2013 and will ask for major concessions from its employees.

    To move forward with the fare hikes, the authority will host a series of citywide public hearings in September before voting on a final package of fare hikes in October. The authority will decide, based upon public input, whether to limited the unlimiteds or simply raise the fares a few dollars more. Only around three percent of all subway riders exceed the proposed limit of 90 trips in a 30-day period.

    As part of the comprehensive plan — and the MTA’s four-year budget outlook — the authority also hopes to rein in work rules and labor spending that it says are out of control. With major union contracts expiring over the next few years, the authority will attempt to institute a wage freeze while curtailing overtime spending and benefit costs. Although labor unions called this a “fantasy agenda,” MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder is set on exacting productivity gains or wage controls on the unions. The MTA will also eliminate more than 3400 administrative positions, and the Board voted to dismiss 200 station agents today as well after complying with a judicial order to hold new public hearings on the proposal.

    “The foundation of this [Four-Year] Plan is the most aggressive and comprehensive overhaul in the history of the MTA,” Walder said. “These actions have allowed us to hold true to our commitment regarding fare increases while maintaining the quantity and quality of service that New Yorkers rely on every day. The State’s ongoing fiscal crisis is one of many risks to the Plan, but with continued hard work and the participation of our labor unions I believe that this Plan can be achieved.”

    Already, battle lines are being drawn, and TWU President John Samuelsen made the first charge. He criticized Walder’s $350,000 salary. “It’s utterly ridiculous,” Transport Workers Union Local 100 Samuelsen said. “It’s hypocritical, and it has to end. “Go after your own paycheck. Go after your own benefits.”

    Samuelsen is, in effect, ignoring the real issues. Instead of working with the MTA to identify cost savings and putting pressure on Albany to help reform public transit funding (and MTA oversight), Samuelsen is highlighting a red herring. The MTA is $800 million in debt, and Walder’s salary, relatively low for an organization the size of the MTA, is needed to attract talented transit planners — instead of politically appointed real estate cronies — to run the MTA. Additionally, Samuelsen’s salary far outstrips that of MTA workers as well.

    I’ll delve more into the MTA’s financial outlook later tonight. But for now, we know what’s in store for the authority. It is saddled with debt and runaway spending costs. Its leaders have vowed to avoid service cuts for the next few years, but to ensure that service remains the same, both the riders and the MTA’s employees at all levels will have to pay. Until serious funding reform efforts are under way, year-by-year budgetary living will be the way of economic life at the MTA, and for that, the millions of New York straphangers will pay more and more at the turnstile.

  • Paying tomorrow for a hamburger today

    When it comes to problems plaguing the MTA, billions of dollars of debt isn’t exactly a sexy topic. On the surface, it doesn’t impact people’s lives as service cuts do, and it has little to do with the public mistrust of MTA management. Yet, whether riders realize it or not, the price we pay today in fare hikes and service cuts all comes back to debt.

    Recently, as part of Albany’s inspired public authorities oversight law — one of the few pieces of worthwhile legislation to emerge from the state legislature in a while — the state’s new Authorities Budget Office released a report on New York’s public authorities. The report (available here as a PDF) doesn’t make too many sweeping statements or offer up any broad conclusions. Some authorities are more accountable than others, and some are more transparent than others. Not too surprisingly to anyone who has been following along, the MTA appears to fall on the “more” side of that divide.

    What the report does offer is a glimpse of the crushing debt that New York State authorities have taken on. Since these authorities are outside the realm of any constitutionally-mandated debt limits, these entities can just accrue loans as long as they have the collateral to do so. For the MTA, that collateral has come in the form of fare revenue and valuation on other physical holdings. As long as people keep riding, the MTA can continue to take out loans.

    For 2009, then, the totals are stunning. New York State authorities reported $133 billion in outstanding debt last year, and $28.8 billion of that — or 21.59 percent of the total — belongs to the MTA. Only the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York has more outstanding debt.

    Meanwhile, the future picture looks worse. Recently, the state granted the MTA the ability to borrow more money, and the authority will have to do so to continue its ambitious capital project. Bond issues for multi-billion-dollar projects are underway, and the debt level will just continue to climb.

    As the MTA accrues debt, outstanding obligations are coming due. In 2009, the MTA had to pay out $1.9 billion in debt service. That total was the third highest expense category in the MTA’s budget, outpaced only by payroll and non-labor spending. That total is set to rise over the next few years unless the MTA again restructures its debt.

    So why does all of this matter? Debt service, debt obligations, they’re all just boring economics terms, right? Wrong. The MTA’s debt matters because we’re paying today for things built years ago, and we’re paying through reduced service, higher fares that will continue to increase and strained labor relations. Since the debt on capital expenditures is carried over to the operations budgets, the debt bills are coming due, and that’s bad news for everyone.

    A few months ago, the MTA had a deficit of $800 million that needed closing. That total is less than half of the MTA’s debt service obligations for the year, and without that debt, the authority wouldn’t be facing extreme service cuts and a significant fare hike across the board. Twenty years ago, when the state had to find a way to maintain its transit system, the powers-that-be decided that fare-backed bonds were the way to go, and now, we in 2010 are paying for something built in the early 1990s. Had Albany properly funded the capital plan then, as it used to in the 1980s, we wouldn’t be suffering through service cuts and budget crises today.

    Despite this from the ABO, there is no end in sight. The authority is still planning on funding its capital projects through debt-generating sources, and the state hasn’t expressed any willingness to help the debt-ridden authorities pare back their spending ways. In 15 years from now, we’ll still be paying for Phase 1 of the Second Ave. Subway, and that is no way to run a transit authority.

  • A salary too high or simply too many employees?

    The Empire State Center for New York State Policy — a project for the right-of-center Manhattan Institute which has turned out-of-control pension costs into its cause célèbre — released its entire MTA payroll data for 2009 yesterday, and as we can imagine, the hand-wringing has begun. If we want to assign blame, though, a bloated work force could trump inflated salaries.

    As the Empire Center reported, the MTA’s total payroll increased by 2.4 percent in 2009. With the TWU, one of the MTA’s largest unions, earning its members a four percent raise last year, some of the MTA’s cost-cutting measures must have been successful. Meanwhile, more than 10 percent of the workforce take home salaries in excess of $100,000. The Center published a PDF list of the top 100 earners, and by and large, these are people who deserve their salaries. Compensation under $300,000 for agency heads seems downright cheap compared to what these workers would make in the private sector.

    The Empire Center’s press release offered up some good tidbits. In the $150,000-and-over club were 11 LIRR car repairmen who nearly tripled their base salary through overtime shifts. Others included:

    • 65 Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad conductors who averaged $86,837 over their base salaries which averaged $75,970;
    • 53 Bridge & Tunnel Sergeants and Lieutenants who averaged $94,962 over the average base pay of $82,594;
    • 34 Long Island and Metro-North Railroad engineers who averaged $89,109 over their $77,953;
    • 28 MTA police officers; and
    • 23 Long Island Railroad gang foremen averaging $81,718 over their base pay rate $82,249.

    To drill down on the salary figures, the Empire Center has provided the public with a salary database as well. Things get interesting when we start looking at what train operators made. One took home over $81,000 on a base salary of $28.65 an hour. That comes out to 350 eight-hour shifts in one calendar year or a lot of overtime. Overall, New York City Transit’s 3487 TOs took home a combined $239.7 million last year.

    I could go on and on with the numbers; it is, after all, strangely addictive and voyeuristic to see what these public employees make. But lists of not-that-outrageous compensation figures serves little purpose. To identify cost savings, the MTA has to figure out how to reduce not just overtime but man-hours as well. A proposed plan to offer early-retirement packages that the MTA and TWU are discussing could be a good start, but the issue won’t be solved by attacking overtime or adjusting work rules alone.

    Rather, one of the problems facing the MTA is the sheer number of people it employs in mostly redundant positions. Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road pay far too many people to collect train tickets, and Transit has a staff of 3487 train operators that could, with current technology, be chopped in half. While union members protective of their jobs claim that one-person train operation will slow down transit, real-life application of that advancement has done nothing of the sort throughout the transit world. We simply do not need two people driving and controlling the subways any longer.

    For its part, the MTA noted its attention to payroll reduction, but the unions were largely silent after the Empire Center released the data. “We are in the process of overhauling every aspect of our business, including the elimination of approximately 3,000 positions this year,” the authority said in a statement. “One key part of this effort is a focus on the work rules, pension padding and management oversight that leads to some of the unnecessary overtime highlighted in today’s report.”

    Yet, that approach almost misses the point. As management and its unionized workers square off over cost-cutting measures, inevitably, the debate turns to battles over compensation figures that aren’t too high. It’s time to reframe that debate, and while OPTO and a more efficient commuter rail ticketing system would involve cutting a large number of employees, the MTA is saddled with too many workers at all levels. That’s the real problem.

  • A late-June Student MetroCard showdown looms

    Because New York City Transit needs a few months’ lead time in order to prepare MetroCard Vending Machines for half-priced student passes, the MTA Board will vote on the future of free student travel during its June 23 meeting, The Post reported on Saturday. “After you hit July, it would make things really difficult,” Hilary Ring, the MTA’s director of governmental affairs, said to lawmakers last week. “It’s not like you can just flip a switch or something; it’s more complicated than that.”

    According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, MTA officials are engaged with state representatives on potential student travel funding plans, but time is, of course, of the essence. We need the state to understand that we can’t continue to function as a free bus service,” Ring said. In related news, New York City announced recently that it will end courtesy busing for 5000 students who currently attend schools hard to reach via transit. While the MTA will see revenues improve when students must pay, the city’s less wealthy families will suffer.

    Meanwhile, lawmakers have been notably silent, at least in public, on the topic of potential rescue plans. In March, Pedro Espada, the state senate majority leader, proposed a modest bridge toll with revenues earmarked for student travel, and new council transportation committee chair James Vacca has vaguely pledged to do “everything we can” to rescue the student MetroCards. For now, though, it appears that until the economy improves, students will be saddled with footing their own bill for travel come the fall.