The MTA’s commitment to transparency is vanishing at precisely the moment public scrutiny is most crucial. Just one month after implementing congestion pricing in Manhattan, the agency has yet to release its detailed overtime report for 2023 – a document that should explain how the MTA spent $1.34 billion in overtime. Despite releasing its audited financial statements for 2023 last June, the agency has not produced the overtime analysis that historically provided crucial oversight of this massive spending.
Instead of providing clear, timely reports on its spending, the MTA has given the public an impenetrable 872,648-row spreadsheet. Buried within this data mountain are numbers that demand explanation: overtime spending has soared from $956.3 million in 2016 to $1.34 billion in 2023 – a 39.8% increase that the MTA seems increasingly reluctant to explain or justify.
But it’s not just overtime costs that are climbing. The agency’s total payroll spending has ballooned to $8.15 billion in 2023, raising serious questions about financial oversight just as the MTA begins collecting new revenue from congestion pricing.
The declining transparency becomes evident when examining the MTA’s reporting history. The 2020 overtime report was completed promptly in March 2021, roughly three months after year end. But since then, the time between year end and report publication has grown steadily longer – with no 2023 report in sight, despite the agency having completed its financial audit last June.
But overtime isn’t even the most alarming trend buried in that mountain of data. Hidden in those hundreds of thousands of rows is something even more striking: “Extra Pay” – a mysterious category separate from overtime and regular salary – nearly doubled in 2023, jumping from $228.8 million to $440.1 million.
That’s a 92.4% increase in a single year. Since 2016, this category has grown by an astounding 250.4% – more than six times faster than overtime.
The 2022 report – when it finally arrived eight months after year-end – made a big show of touting monthly overtime review meetings, enhanced management controls, and programs to improve employee availability. Do these programs still exist? Are they working? With no 2023 report, the public has about as much chance of knowing as they do of finding a working elevator in a subway station.
The questions for Chairman Janno Lieber keep piling up faster than overtime hours. Why did overtime hit $1.34 billion in 2023 despite promised controls? What explains Extra Pay nearly doubling in a single year? Why do these crucial oversight reports keep arriving later and later – until they stop arriving at all? Is there a connection between rising costs and declining transparency? And how can New Yorkers trust that the new congestion pricing revenue will be managed effectively when the agency can’t even maintain basic reporting standards?
After 13 months of silence, this much is clear: as the numbers get bigger, the delays in reporting them get longer. What began as a pattern of late reports has evolved into a complete breakdown of transparency. The MTA’s transformation from an agency that once provided detailed annual overtime analysis to one that dumps raw spreadsheet data on the public marks a troubling shift away from accountability – precisely when its spending deserves the closest scrutiny.
Chairman Lieber, we’re still waiting for that report. But don’t worry – your 872,648 rows of data should keep us busy while you find it. Just don’t expect us to believe this delay is running on schedule.
© Copyright by Sam Antar. All rights reserved.