A Congressional committee on Wednesday passed a long-awaited, $1.5 billion Metro funding bill with amendments that could drastically cut overtime and associated pension payments to Metro employees.
The House Government Reform committee’s action on the bill could substantially reduce Metro employee paychecks and benefits and force renegotiation of a key provision in the labor contract next year.
Spurred by The Examiner’s report of high overtime payments to Metro employees, the committee included provisions in the bill requiring Metro to exclude overtime pay when calculating pension benefits and cap overtime pay at one-third of base salary.
“These amendments build upon accounts reported last week in The Examiner of soaring pension costs at the transit authority,” said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the bill’s sponsor.
An Examiner analysis found 125 of Metro’s train and bus operators, plus dozens of other hourly employees, earned more than $100,000 in fiscal 2006 thanks to hefty overtime payments. These payments triggered bloated pension payments, critics said, because Metro calculates pension payments as a percentage of an employee’s average earnings during his three highest-paid years. The current labor contract requires overtime to be included in that calculation.
In a hypothetical case, a train operator earning a $75,000 base salary and working $70,000 worth of overtime now would only be able to earn $25,000 from overtime under the bill. To calculate his pension, his earnings for the year would only be $75,000, not the $145,000 it is right now.
Metro, which faces a $116 million deficit, could save millions in overtime and pension payments under the new provisions.
“With the large amount of federal funds going into the Metro system, there needs to be stringent oversight of how the money is spent,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., the lawmaker who sponsored the amendments.
Metro officials, who have long sought the funding in Davis’ bill to modernize a rapidly aging system, balked at the new requirements. Besides the $1.5 billion in federal funds, the legislation also requires D.C., Virginia and Maryland to match the federal allocation.
“It constitutes a form of micro-management,” said D.C. Council Member Jim Graham, who serves on Metro’s board of directors. “I don’t know how much you can legislate this type of thing.”
Metro General Manager John Catoe, who is attempting to streamline the agency and balance its budget, raised concerns that a rapid reduction in overtime would harm the system’s operations. Catoe must negotiate a new contract next year with Local 689 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, representing 70 percent of Metro’s work force.
The Local 689 did not return calls for comment.
The bill and the amendments face a long road before becoming law. The House and Senate must pass them with the amendment surviving what are likely to be tough conference committee negotiations.
