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The LIRR spent $214 million in overtime last year, down...

The LIRR spent $214 million in overtime last year, down about $4 million from 2023. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams, Jr.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority cut overtime spending by more than $7 million in 2024, but still exceeded its overtime budget by more than $18 million, according to newly released MTA financial documents.

The $1.403 billion in overtime spent by the MTA in 2024 was down about 0.5% from its record-setting overtime expenditure in 2023, according to a year-end financial report released earlier this week. But the amount was still 1.3% above the $1.385 billion the transit agency had earmarked for overtime last year.

"Last year the MTA reduced overtime spending compared to the year before, and we are going to look to reduce overtime again this year," MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan wrote in a statement.

The MTA, in documents, attributed the higher-than-expected overtime to several factors, including having to backfill vacant positions and higher spending on MTA Police for "direct patrol and fare evasion policing."

The MTA reduced some overtime costs, including at its Bridges and Tunnels agency, which employed "management efficiencies and improved scheduling" to shave $31 million in overtime costs from its operating budget, according to MTA documents.

The LIRR spent $214 million in overtime in 2024, close to its budgeted amount and down about $4 million from the previous year, documents show.

Although overtime spending was more than expected, the MTA’s total labor costs of $13.7 billion in 2024 was $234.5 million under budget and about $6.1 million lower than in 2023.

Ken Girardin, director of research at the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany, noted that, while slightly lower than 2023, the MTA’s overtime bill last year was still above the $1.38 billion it spent in overtime in 2018, which triggered several investigations by law enforcement authorities into wage fraud among workers.

Five former MTA employees were convicted on various charges relating to them lying about their work hours, including the MTA’s highest overtime earner in 2018, LIRR track inspector Thomas Caputo, who was sentenced to 8 months in prison after admitting he lied about having worked 3,864 hours of overtime in one year. Caputo made $344,000 in overtime on top of his $117,000 salary in 2018, according to MTA pay records.

Although the MTA implemented several reforms since to address overtime abuse, Girardin said the state has yet to address the "actual cost drivers" behind its high overtime rates — antiquated union work rules that allow employees to inflate their pay disproportionately to how much work they do.

He accused the MTA of not cracking down on fraud or addressing "wasteful" contract provisions.

"Both of those are a conscious choice," Girardin said. "The governor and the legislature could change this tomorrow."

John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union, the MTA’s largest labor organization, said the MTA’s consistently high overtime is a testament to the growing cost of maintaining an aging transit system with an insufficient workforce.

As of December, the MTA employed 71,938 people — 2,362 fewer than the positions in its budget, according to agency documents.

"The reality is that they’re still short on headcount, across the board. The system is getting older and older every year," Samuelsen said. "And, yet, they still won’t invest in headcount. They’d rather pay the overtime."

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