MTA Chief Likely to Keep Post, Officials Say : Transit: Consulting firm says he has broad support in the authority’s upper echelon and that ousting him could destabilize agency.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Franklin E. White, dogged by criticism over his handling of the city’s troubled subway construction, appears to have outlasted months of speculation about his pending ouster and is likely to stay on the job at least another year, officials said Friday.

At a closed MTA session Thursday, a consulting firm that has been evaluating White’s leadership reported that the chief executive enjoys broad support among the agency’s upper echelon, sources said. Replacing him, the consultants warned, could hurt the MTA’s stability at a time of political and financial uncertainty at the agency.

After the report, Mayor Richard Riordan--one of White’s toughest critics--posed the question of White’s future to about a dozen MTA board members and alternates who were present at the mayor’s office for a committee meeting on the CEO’s performance.

Neither Riordan nor anyone else moved to replace White, sources said, and the consensus emerging from the discussion was clear: The chief executive should stay.

Next month, the full board is expected to consider a one-year extension of White’s $175,000-a-year contract. Some officials, however, are considering linking the extension to a requirement that White meet certain goals.

“Now that this matter is behind us, hopefully we can go onto real productive items that need the attention of the full board and the CEO,” said board member James Cragin, who attended the meeting.

Neither Riordan nor White could be reached for comment Friday. In a statement, White said: “I am gratified at the confidence the committee has shown in me. In deference to the board, however, I will reserve any further comment until the full board can act upon the committee’s recommendation.”

The developments mark a sharp turnaround in White’s political fortunes, which appeared seriously threatened in the face of vocal opposition from Riordan. The mayor said in one interview late last year that inefficiency among the MTA’s management “drives me nuts,” and officials said the names of possible successors to White were under discussion.

But some of White’s supporters countered that he was being made a scapegoat for the agency’s mounting problems. Some were also concerned that firing the chief executive, who is black, could damage relations between city leaders and minorities.

Sources at Thursday’s meeting said consultants from McKinsey & Co.--the firm brought in by Riordan last year to evaluate the CEO position--reported that White’s job was made tougher by organizational problems at the MTA. These included the challenge of answering to more than 30 MTA board members and alternates, and the fallout from the 1993 merger of the MTA’s two predecessor agencies.

The report may have helped bolster support for White, officials said.

“Finally, people started to realize that this was not just a Frank White problem,” said one official who asked not to be identified.

“So everybody decided to make nice with him and give him the next year,” the source said. “We all know that the problems he’s experienced are not his own, and that there are structural problems that need to be fixed. But at the same time, he did not act quickly enough to fix them, and he now knows he has to get his act together.”

Since White took over the agency in 1993, the MTA has faced an embarrassing series of financial, political and engineering problems in the city’s new subway system--the largest public works project in the country. The agency is now also drastically scaling back its transit construction for the next two decades because of unrealistic financial projections.

The MTA did get one boost Friday, however, as tunneling resumed on the subway project on Hollywood Boulevard after a two-week shutdown. Workers were doing grouting work to prevent further sinkage of the ground in that area, which had dropped about two inches during construction.