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MTA SHELLED OUT $1.3 BILLION IN OVERTIME LAST YEAR AS MANY EMPLOYEES RACKED UP
SIX FIGURES IN EXTRA PAY

By Ben Brachfeld Posted on July 27, 2023
An LIRR M7 train in Queens in 2014.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin

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The MTA’s overtime expenditures increased to a whopping $1.3 billion in 2022,
with more than 500 workers pulling in six figures of extra pay.

The findings were compiled in a report by the Empire Center, a think tank that
conducts research on New York state government.



OT expenditures at the transit agency increased from $1.1 billion in 2021, and
the number of employees pulling in six figures of OT jumped from 320 in 2021 to
566 in 2022. More than 1,100 workers made more than double their normal salary
in OT.



Harry L. Dobson, a structures supervisor at Metro-North, pulled in the highest
amount of OT of any MTA employee in 2022, hauling in $229,770.89 on top of
$113,372.96 in salary.

MTA Police Lieutenant Robert Rau, meanwhile, added $212,209.68 in OT on top of
his $168,339.28 to take home $386,320.42 in pay last year. That makes Rau the
second-highest-paid employee in the MTA’s roughly 70,000-person workforce,
trailing only Chair and CEO Janno Lieber, who pulled in just over $400,000.



Rau is paid well in excess of not only his boss at the MTA Police, Chief John
Mueller. He’s even paid more than Cathy Rinaldi, the head of both Metro-North
and the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). Neither Rau nor Dobson could be reached
for comment.

Ken Girardin, a fellow at the Empire Center and one of the report’s authors,
laid the blame squarely on union rules that effectively require supervisors to
give first dibs on OT shifts to the workers with the most seniority, allowing a
small cadre of workers to say yes to every OT request and pull in massive extra
pay. He said that the failure of state lawmakers to rein in OT results in higher
fares and worse service for customers.

“Whenever the Long Island Rail Road or the MTA as a whole have difficulty with
money, the go-to response from the Legislature has been to let them collect more
money, or send more money. It hasn’t been to reform the organization or limit
their cost drivers,” Girardin told amNewYork Metro. “The Senate and the Assembly
would rather see people pay higher fares for poorer service than to rock the
boat with respect to the MTA’s unions.”



The drying-up of federal COVID-19 operating aid and sluggish recovery of
ridership from the pandemic led MTA leaders to warn this year it was approaching
a “fiscal cliff” that would require draconian fare hikes, service cuts, and
layoffs to ameliorate. State lawmakers responded with a budget that hiked
payroll taxes on city residents and set aside future casino revenue for the
authority.

The MTA is also raising fares next month as part of the financial rescue
package, bringing the price of a subway or bus ride to $2.90, and plans to
implement “efficiency” savings to reduce operating costs. The MTA now projects a
balanced budget through 2027.



Labor reforms were never part of the discussion, however, since the contracts
were already baked in, but the Empire Center notes that the increase in OT alone
last year, $171 million, covers half of the $369 million in additional revenue
the MTA projects to generate through the fare increase.

An LIRR M9 train pulls into Grand Central Madison in 2022 for testing before the
terminal’s opening.File Photo by Kevin Duggan

The OT issue is particularly pronounced at the LIRR, which had by far the
highest number of employees pulling in six-figure OT of any of the MTA’s
departments. The LIRR even surpassed New York City Transit, which oversees the
city’s subways and buses and employed, as of December, more than six times as
many workers.



Girardin noted that unlike subway and bus workers — who are legally prohibited
from striking under the state’s Taylor Law — LIRR labor relations are governed
by federal rules, which do not forbid strikes.

“They’re allowed to strike on Long Island Rail Road, but at the same time,
there’s no limiting principle in the negotiations,” said Girardin. “There’s no
risk that their demands are going to put them out of work.”

While he concedes that OT is a “necessary part of any governmental operation,”
Girardin contends that the MTA’s OT practices, and the sheer amount issued, make
it easier for fraud to go undetected, especially at the LIRR.

Five LIRR employees were convicted and sentenced last year in a wide-ranging
scheme to defraud the railroad of overtime pay, clocking in several hours of
bogus extra work every day and raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in OT.
The federal judge in the case described the situation as an “orgy of overtime
fraud.”

The ringleader of the scheme, LIRR “Overtime King” Thomas Caputo, was the MTA’s
highest-paid employee in 2018, pulling in $461,000; he was sentenced to eight
months in prison. It’s an open secret that LIRR employees sleep on the job, said
another co-conspirator, Joseph Balestra, who was sentenced to three months.

Reached for comment, an MTA spokesperson more or less agreed with Girardin on
the drivers of the hefty OT going to senior employees, and pledged the agency is
working on getting it under control.

“With thousands of positions still unfilled, overtime is necessary for the MTA
to deliver all of the scheduled subway, bus and commuter rail service, maintain
infrastructure and recover from weather-related disruptions,” said the MTA
spokesperson, Aaron Donovan. “However, because of long-standing union
agreements, in many cases the distribution of overtime among employees is
determined by seniority which can result in some employees getting a
disproportionate share. We will continue to look for ways to control overtime —
especially when it goes to a few high earners.”

The main union representing LIRR employees, the International Association of
Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART), did not return a
request for comment.

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