Now we know why the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority always seems to be out of money.
Examiner reporter Joe Rogalsky examined Metro payroll records (available online at www.examiner.com/wecan) and found that the transit agency paid out a staggering $70 million in overtime last year. More than half of the top 200 hourly employees who racked up the most overtime in 2006 took home six-figure paychecks that equaled or exceeded the already generous salaries of Metro’s top managers.
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There’s something wrong when a bus driver makes more than an assistant general manager, or a Metro police officer is paid more than the director of emergency management. This is especially true when Metro managers themselves are more than amply compensated. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, average per-capita income in the Washington region in 2005 was $49,530 — the fourth-highest in the U.S. But the total pay for many Metro employees is three times that amount.
General Manager John Catoe Jr. says he won’t ask for a fare increase this year. Instead, he plans to cut spending and eliminate 100 positions in an attempt to make up a $116 million budget shortfall. But if Metro is really stretched so thin that it had to spend an extra $70 million in overtime to keep the trains and buses running, Catoe should be hiring people, not downsizing.
The answer to this apparent contradiction is that Metro’s bloated payroll has long been padded by politically sensitive management with no interest in keeping down costs for passengers or relieving the taxpayers who have been bailing them out for decades. Metro’s latest bailout scheme is the controversial $1.5 billion federal earmark that if adopted will also mean higher taxes for District, Virginia and Maryland residents.
The scandal here is not just overtime abuses, however. Metro pensions are based on the three-highest earning years, so a unionized bus operator with an annual base salary of $50,000 and lots of overtime during those “High Three” years can easily end up with $80,000 in annual pension benefits. This is substantially more generous than even the old federal Civil Service Retirement System.
Sooner or later, Metro will have to address its growing unfunded pension liability. Major management reforms are probably impossible under the present union contract and political leadership, which means that higher taxes, more fare increases, deferred maintenance and diminished service are likely unavoidable. Catoe is paid $360,000 — more than any area elected official — and his perks include a company car, so it will be tough for him to demand austerity from the union without practicing it himself. And Metro Board members — political creatures who should be looking out for taxpayers but don’t — need to learn some new pitches instead of always begging for more tax dollars.
Metro employees deserve good working conditions and competitive salaries, but they shouldn’t be allowed to take the rest of us to the cleaners.
