Despite Budget Crisis, MTA Funds New Jobs

Over the past year, the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority has eliminated more than 500 jobs and handed pink slips to scores of employees in an effort to erase a $300-million deficit.

So how is it that the MTA’s new $2.9-billion budget holds the promise of 120 more full-time positions than it had last year?

Welcome to the Byzantine world of budgeting in an agency that needs 13 people just to balance its books.

For the new fiscal year that began July 1, MTA has allocated money for 8,935 full-time employees, down from the 9,207 permanent jobs it set money aside for last year.

But as of early May, only 8,815 of those slots were actually filled--which leaves room for 120 additional employees to meet the goal of 8,935 approved in the budget this week.

Many of these new positions fall in offices whose employees command the highest average salaries in the mammoth transit agency. Some managers have already begun screening candidates, ending a hiring freeze imposed last January.

The recruitment drive continued even as the authority was in the grip of a transit strike. The agency has also hiked bus fares for the first time in six years, scaled back service on some lines and planned further reductions in its operating staff in order to avoid bankruptcy.

“Let’s just say this is very creative budgeting,” one critic said of the possibility of swelling the MTA’s overall work force during the coming year. “Do you ever get the feeling that David Letterman should have a segment called Stupid Budget Tricks?”

MTA budget director Larry Schlegel acknowledged that filling the 8,935 full-time positions authorized in the budget would increase the current permanent work force by 120.

As a result, nearly every department within the MTA can hire new people, up to 328 in all, because the agency’s operations unit--which includes most of the workers who went on strike--has been ordered to trim its staff by 208 members. That still allows for a net gain of 120 employees agencywide.

The operations unit is the only unit that must cut its worker rolls in the new fiscal year--a fact that frosts Goldy Norton, a spokesman for the bus and train operators union.

“Last I heard it was operations that brought in money, not management,” Norton said. “I am not aware of management people bringing in any revenue. All they do is cost revenue.”

Norton accused the MTA of playing “a shell game,” saying the agency is trying to make the public believe it is cutting back on personnel when it actually plans to beef up its ranks.

MTA officials defend the new staffing figures, noting that more than 100 employees have been laid off in recent months and a greater number of vacant positions eliminated altogether.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer L. A. (Kim) Kimball said that of the 328 positions now open, half are for transit police officers, who have recently taken over security of the Blue Line from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. And many of the remaining jobs are clerical or lower-wage positions.

But critics point out that these openings occur in administrative, managerial or planning units--departments staffed mainly by white-collar professionals whose average salaries tend to be higher.

The new budgets for these units, compared to their actual expenses last year, have all gone up. The operations budget has decreased.

“What you see is a shift away from operations to almost everything else,” said one MTA official who asked not to be identified.

One department, representing MTA board officials, has been allotted $8.5 million--more than double what it spent last year. The executive office has also been given more money, enough for 18 new full-time employees--a 50% staffing increase.

On average, employees in those two units have pay-and-benefit packages of $77,333, according to MTA statistics from last December. By contrast, the operations unit’s average package stands at $63,489.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, an MTA board member, recently recommended a 25% cut in the funds assigned to the board. But her motion died without a second.

“We need to look at trimming administrative . . . costs where possible, instead of services,” Molina said. “My motion was designed to do that. Unfortunately, the votes weren’t there to support it.”

President Michael Bujosa of the Amalgamated Transit Union, one of the three that have been locked in contentious negotiations with the MTA, said it was difficult to explain to his members why the professional units were in line for staff and budget increases while 80 of his mechanics and servicers received pink slips last month. .

“They’re keeping the people who watch the people doing the work, but they’re laying off the people who actually do the work,” Bujosa said. “It doesn’t make sense.”