By Steve Levy
In a startling political maneuver, New York Governor Kathy Hochul shocked commuters, taxpayers and environmentalists by doing a sudden about face on congestion pricing that was about to charge motorists $15 for driving into Manhattan in just a few weeks.
The scuttlebutt is that the governor, who was a strong proponent of this liberal concept for years, got cold feet when she saw the polls noting how residents are opposed to the proposal. Over seventy percent of Long Islanders have a negative view of the tax. https://www.newsday.com/long-island/transportation/long-islanders-poll-congestion-pricing-new-york-city-mta-aze29426
Some have suggested that the reversal is an effort to stave off negative votes that would impact Democrats in the upcoming November elections. The governor mentioned that the hold was indefinite. The question remains whether indefinite means the day after election.
Equally disturbing is that the governor’s first reaction to the budget hole that will be created by her action is to suggest other tax increases, most likely on the New York business community. https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/mta-congestion-pricing-hochul-payroll-tax-p517ph8y
Which brings us to the most important point that politicians of both parties throughout New York continue to ignore: The MTA doesn’t have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.
The root of the problem is the extraordinarily onerous rules, regulations, and contracts that govern MTA personnel matters, including salaries, benefits, overtime, pensions, perks, and deployment. Subsequent to 2009, when the state imposed a payroll tax on schools, businesses and not for profits in New York City and its surrounding suburbs to fill the huge budget gaps in the MTA, taxpayer advocates, including Tax Relief Now, exposed the enormous fraud and inefficiency existent within the MTA universe. https://www.newsday.com/business/he-makes-fighting-mta-tax-part-of-his-job-q89473
Ridiculous lack of oversight and a “go along to get along” attitude from managers and officials allowed such archaic conditions as:
- An employee racking up $344,000 in overtime in a single year https://nypost.com/2019/04/23/mtas-top-earner-made-344k-in-overtime-last-year/
- In 2022, 566 MTA employees each collected more than $100,000 in OT https://www.google.com/search?q=empire+center+report+on+mta+abuse&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF 8&hl=enus&client=safari#ip=1
- Employees retiring with pensions exceeding $160,000
- Spending $7 million on a doghouse for the MTA
- Spending $20 million for a new lounge
- Employees receiving overtime for the times spent cleaning their hands and changing clothes
- Double pay if a conductor worked on both a diesel and electric train in the same day
- Nearly $1 billion lost in bogus disability pensions
- Subway cleaning workers could not be asked to replace light bulbs
- The MTA employing 25 people for tunnel-boring machine work that Spain did with nine
We had thought that, when this fraud was exposed over a decade ago, the MTA would have taken action to reform the system, but, every time a new contract came up, the union would threaten to strike right before election, and our governors would fold like cheap tents.
There is only one way out of the spiraling mess. It’s not by raising taxes further on our residents and businesses, nor is it by raising fares.
It’s time to impose a fiscal control board over the MTA and obtain authority from the state Legislature and the courts to rejigger these awful contracts, rules and regulations.
Bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he targeted banks. His now legendary response was: that’s where the money is. If you want to know where the money is in the MTA, it’s largely in personnel.
These runaway costs must be brought under control. While the state Legislature foolishly passed a law that prohibits the MTA from going bankrupt to protect bondholders from taking a haircut, there does not appear to be a prohibition on the establishment of a control board that can restructure these contracts, rules, and regulations.
This is the method by which New York City was saved in its near fiscal collapse in the 1970s. It’s what Nassau and Erie Counties went through over the last few decades. We saw such restructuring in cities ranging from Detroit to San Bernardino to Stockton.
So, we know what the solution is. What’s missing is the will to implement it. Thus far our state leaders, from Governors Cuomo and Hochul to legislators on both sides of the aisle, have failed to produce a brave leader who will finally stand up for taxpayers, ratepayers, and commuters, and put an end to the unconscionable fraud, waste and inefficiency that has been allowed to continue in the financial black hole otherwise known as the MTA.
Steve Levy is Executive Director of the Center for Cost Effective Government, a fiscally conservative think tank. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” Costeffectivegov@gmail.com