NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — MTA overtime spending increased for the first time since 2019 last year as the agency faced COVID-related staffing shortages, according to a report.
Agency-wide year-end overtime spending increased by 3%, according to new documents obtained by the New York Post, growing from $1.137 billion to $1.164 billion.
According to the paper, the MTA is blaming the spike on “vacancy and availability coverage, additional maintenance requirements and adverse weather response.”
The overtime spending was the first increase since 2019, when former MTA Chairman Pat Foye hired consultants to develop a plan to prevent overtime fraud, according to the Post.
After a year of repeat overtime abuse, Foye had said that the MTA was “laser-focused on advancing a range of initiatives aimed at driving down controllable overtime and addressing potential abuses.”
However, the current MTA Chair, Janno Lieber, told the Post on Monday that the increased spending in 2021 was justified.
“We were struggling with a crew shortage brought on by COVID,” Lieber told the paper. “One of the ways that we successfully fought our way back to 94 percent of service, before omicron hit, was by using overtime.”
He added that the use of overtime to close staffing gaps was “different than the overtime that is associated with people taking advantage of the system and has led to some criminal justice activity.”
Last month, the MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny also revealed that the MTA Police Department’s overtime spending also increased by nearly 21% in 2021.
Pokorny said that that spending was also driven by the pandemic as MTA police officers were ordered to tackle homeless outreach services, efforts to reduce fare evasion and maintain an orderly overnight shutdown of the subway system.
During those special projects, the MTAPD’s overtime expenditures grew from $27.5 million to $33.3 million.
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