$trapped MTA eyes service cut

The MTA warned Friday that its budget woes could force cuts to bus and subway service this fall — though it was unable to provide any details about the severity of the possible reductions.

The warning from chairman Pat Foye comes as the state-run authority stares down budget deficits that could grow to $1 billion by 2023.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do. We’re reviewing the possibility of new subway and bus service adjustments in the fall,” Foye said, adding, “That is painful for all of us, but that is the reality.”

Details of the cuts could come as soon as September, he added.

The MTA is pursuing a controversial consolidation plan that it hopes will cut a half-billion dollars a year in expenses — and it has come under heavy scrutiny for its prolific overtime spending, which hit $1.3 billion last year.

A new 61-page report commissioned by the MTA pinned much of the expense on the overtime surge that followed the subway system’s state of emergency in 2017.

Tensions were high during Friday’s MTA board meeting. John Samuelsen, the president of the Transport Workers Union, accused longtime Gov. Cuomo appointee Larry Schwartz of “ranting and raving in an inappropriate, hyperbolic manner about abuse and fraud among transit workers,” referencing a CBS 2 TV interview where Schwartz said that “people need to either go to jail . . . and we need to collect the money that they stole from the taxpaying public.”

“Read the transcript and watch the segment,” Schwartz fired back. “If you’d read it, you’d know what you just said was a lie.”