Public Employee Press

MTA back on track to waste

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Only a month after Local 375 members brought in the No. 1 and No. 9 subway tunnel rebuilding project ahead of schedule and under budget, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to give a $41 million handout to a consultant to do an engineering design study for the expansion of the No. 7 line.

The $41 million contract may be inflated by as much as 35 percent of the cost of doing the work in-house, say union engineers.

“I don’t know what it will take for the MTA to learn not to waste taxpayers’ money,” said Claude Fort, president of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375.

“With the city and the state both facing huge deficits, wasting money like this is totally outrageous,” said DC37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts. To help the city address its projected $5 billion budget gap for next year, DC 37 in May released a white paper with recommendations on how the city could save $600 million through slashing contracting out, implementing civilianization and attacking government waste.

“Just after management praises our members for their stellar work on the 1 and 9 tunnel at Ground Zero, the agency farms out a new project with little public discussion and no serious opportunity for us to present a case to keep the work in-house,” Mr. Fort said.

The MTA board met Sept. 26 and awarded the contract to the Parsons Brinckerhoff firm, which has hired former TA executives, according to Local 375. Former Transit Authority president Alan Kieper, and Jerry Foreman, who used to head the capital management program, went to work there after they left the agency. The TA is part of the MTA.

Mr. Fort, Local 375 Treasurer Bob Mariano, who is president of the local’s chapter at MTA New York City Transit, and Mitchell Feder, chair of the local’s Anti-Privatization Committee, left the meeting profoundly disillusioned and outraged over the political process.

“The meeting lasted a grand total of 11 minutes or so, and in that short period the board rubber-stamped millions of dollars in contracts,” Mr. Mariano said. “Mitch was one of only two speakers. They were only given two minutes each to address the board.”

“It was outrageous,” Mr. Feder said. “I was cut off before I could get to the meat of our argument. This is no way to conduct the public’s business.”

The four-year study includes an environmental impact report and a preliminary design of the project, which would extend the No. 7 line from the Times Square Station to the Javits Convention Center. The MTA hasn’t yet secured funding to build the project, which local officials want to use to support the city’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

Profit and other overhead adds at least 15 percent to the cost of such projects, Mr. Feder said. The administrative and supervisory expenses incurred by Transit on contracted-out work add an additional 20 percent to the cost, he said.

Thus, the initial $41 million contract may be inflated by as much as 35 percent.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved if the design services for the full project are performed by in-house engineering staff,” Mr. Feder said in his prepared statement for the MTA board hearing.