News Cheap-Shots MTA Execs.
Dishonest Voice of New York

By MEL LEVY

Two weeks ago there was a small series in the Daily News showing what it called the bloated salaries of the MTA and Department of Education executives.

Mr. Levy, a retired veteran of 35 years in the transit system who monitored the structural integrity of the subway system's below-river tunnels, is the former chairman of the Civil Service Technical Guild's New York City Transit chapter.

Well, I don't know what the reporters, editors and publisher have against these people. After all, they are all answerable to the public by their performance or they can be replaced (by their agency boards or the Mayor). Therefore the issue is compensation, not performance.

Compensation is determined by an agreement between the employer and the employee through a negotiation process. This article will concern itself with the MTA, as I have some knowledge of the agency and three of its Presidents. The compensation packages for MTA Presidents Howard Roberts (New York City Transit), Savage (MTA Bus) and Nagaraja (Capital Construction Company) range from $265,000 to $311,000.

Compare this with the CEO of Con Edison, Kevin Burke, whose compensation package for 2006 was $1.53 million.

NYC Transit employs 50,000 people, compared with 14,796 at Con Edison. It did not have a 10-day service interruption (see Con Ed in Queens). And the transit system does move over seven million people per day at a public-controlled fare safely and on time.

Con Edison has failures and still has (and wants higher) guaranteed profit. Yet the Daily News does not talk about the package or competence of Mr. Burke when complaining about public executives.

A look at other CEO packages shows that:

1. Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum has a salary package of $322 million. Have you filled your car's gas tank lately?

2. Stanley O'Neal of Merrill-Lynch made $48 million in 2006. His company is really middlemen buying and selling someone else's ownings, for which they just take a piece.

3. Ken Lewis of Bank of America made $100 million. Yet when banks get into trouble (bad loans sub-prime mortgages etc.) they get help from you through government bail-out legislation etc.

4. Katie Couric gets $15 million to tell you less about what's going on than you can read in newspapers.

The Daily News has attacked public service executives in the MTA and Department of Education. I can personally vouch for the competence and work ethic of Howard Roberts, Tom Savage and Mysore Nagaraja (and they are underpaid compared to the other aforementioned CEO's).

I guess if this goes over (and they sell more newspapers), other hard-working civil servants will be next.