Pro: Blaz not blameless in MTA overtime spree
Mayor de Blasio is partially responsible for the MTA’s recent spike in overtime payouts, according to a consultant hired to look into ballooning overtime costs at the agency.
Hizzoner’s decision to hold up funding for the $836 million Subway Action Plan prevented the agency from hiring new staffers to make long overdue repairs to subway infrastructure, the consultant, Carrie Cohen, says.
Cohen, a former Manhattan assistant U.S. attorney, was hired to examine MTA overtime costs.
Gov. Cuomo in August 2017 said the city should pay half of the plan’s cost, but de Blasio disagreed. For months he argued that New Yorkers already pay for the bulk of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s expenses, and that the state, not the city, should put up the money for the crucial subway fixes.
The mayor was finally forced to put up the money in March 2018 — but the delay had a major impact on MTA staffing, the report says.
“Subways anticipated hiring more full-time employees for SAP (Subway Action Plan)-related work in late 2017, but disputes regarding whether New York City would fund half of SAP caused management to lower its hiring goals,” Cohen wrote in the report released Thursday. “Reportedly, Subways then had more work with lower headcount, necessitating additional overtime shifts.”
The mayor’s office deflected any blame for high overtime costs to the Cuomo-controlled MTA.
“The city funded half of the Subway Action Plan and better performance is getting New Yorkers moving again,” said de Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein. “Any questions about implementation, including the use of overtime, is strictly the responsibility of the MTA.”
The MTA spent $119 million on overtime in 2018, a 16% increase from 2017. The majority of that increase was the result of the additional work done through the Subway Action Plan, according to Cohen’s report.
At a press conference Friday, MTA Chairman Pat Foye declined to dig into the mayor’s involvement with the Subway Action Plan.
“The state funding came in first, the city funding came in later,” he said. “We’re long past that.”