Just before Christmas, a blue-ribbon commission gave Gov. Cuomo, not exactly what he asked for under his tree, but what he needed: a plan for lasting fixes at the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Cuomo ought to resist the temptation to return this gift, though it doesn’t fit his usual habits. If he follows its instructions, transit riders will be better off.
The commission got off to an inauspicious start. Cuomo created it as part of the state budget in April, at the request of the state Assembly. Distracted by his re-election bid, Cuomo didn’t even appoint his nominees to the commission until August, giving them scant time to do a tough job.
Then, too, the group that eventually convened was . . . diverse.
The commission, chaired by Kathryn Wylde, head of the business-backed Partnership for New York City, included everyone from Melissa Mark-Viverito, former City Council speaker, appointed by Mayor de Blasio; to Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, New Jersey treasurer under Gov. Chris Christie, appointed by the Republican state Senate before it lost its majority in November.
Rounding out the list were non-political experts, such as Sam Schwartz, Koch-era traffic commissioner.
You would think the motley outfit wouldn’t agree on anything, let alone how to fix a transit system in crisis. Yet agree it did.
The report that the group produced naturally called for more revenue. A majority of commissioners recommended a congestion-pricing fee for truck and car drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street, raising more than $1 billion annually for the MTA and helping defray the estimated $41 billion to $60 billion needed for necessary signal and other upgrades.
That’s nothing new: A similar commission, convened in 2008, also recommended major new “funding sources” for the MTA, including what eventually became the 2009 payroll tax. That indirect tax on all employees in downstate New York now brings in 10 percent of the MTA’s $16.7 billion budget.
What is new, and tough, is an emphasis on cost control.
The report says something that its predecessor of a decade ago eschewed: namely, that the “MTA has unsustainable growth in . . . costs.” The report further notes that labor is a big driver of those costs, amounting to 60 percent of the MTA expense budget.
To reduce these costs, the commission suggests something radical. “Management and labor,” it says, should “identify mutually beneficial ways to contain costs” and “increase productivity.”
The group further suggests that “the collective bargaining process should . . . include discussion of updating work rules, many of which are obsolete and add unnecessarily to MTA expenses.”
The report also nods to the “unsustainable” growth in MTA workers’ health-care costs, with the health budget growing to more than $1.4 billion for 2019, 20 percent higher than the level of two years ago.
To many New Yorkers, all this may sound like common sense. In 2008, labor expenses at the MTA’s subway and bus division were $4.5 billion, including $250 million in overtime. This year, they’re projected to be $6.6 billion, including $500 million in overtime.
That’s a nearly 47 percent growth overall, even though inflation, over the past decade has run about 19 percent.
Simple math shows that money alone can’t save the MTA. The authority must cut costs, if it is to address annual deficits exceeding $1 billion, even after fare increases, and without accounting for major modernizations of equipment.
But it’s hard to overestimate how much of a breakthrough it is to get New York’s Democratic establishment — the likes of Mark-Viverito, as well as loyal Democratic soldiers like Freddy Ferrer, former Bronx borough president and one-time mayoral candidate, and Michael Gianaris, ambitious Democratic state senator from Queens — to acknowledge that things have to change.
As it happens, the MTA’s current agreement with the Transport Workers Union expires in four months. In his past two agreements with the TWU, Cuomo has proved a reliable friend, awarding raises as well as sweeteners to health-care contracts and other benefits.And there’s nothing wrong with that: Transit workers work hard.
But sometimes being a friend means saying when time’s up — and being firm that the union must make concessions to maintain the public’s support for its unique power over New Yorkers’ lives.
This piece originally appeared at the New York Post
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Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal. Follow her on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post