In my prior post, I noted that from 2007 to 2012 overall U.S. inflation was 10.7%, and the average annual pay of most Downstate New York workers increased just 8.0%. Wall Street pay fell. But based on data from the National Transit Database (NTD), the total operating cost per employee work hour for MTA component agencies increased by 15.2% for Metro North, 15.5% for the Long Island Railroad, 21.8% for the NYC subway, 24.8% for New York City Transit buses and 4.8% for MTA Bus, the former private bus companies in New York City. Mostly due to soaring retirement costs thanks to pension enhancements retroactively granted in the past but not paid for at the time, and past pension underfunding. That’s the bad news.
Now for the really bad news. Those operating costs, as measured by the NTD, do not include soaring interest payments on MTA bonds. As of this January, the MTA has $32.8 billion in debt outstanding, of which $2.5 billion is variable rate, according to information on its website. Little of that debt has been incurred to expand the system to new areas and riders, which might result in more tax and fare revenues. Most of the money has been borrowed to merely pay to replace buses, subway and rail cars, and other components of the transit system as they wear out. The MTA even borrows for painting under its capital plan. In the most recent MTA capital plan, the cost of this type of this (in reality) maintenance spending was about $4.4 billion per year. Nearly all of it was borrowed. And with the interest on past debts (along with the retirement benefits) soaking up more and more of the MTA’s annual revenues, no one knows where the money to maintain the system for the next 30 years (while the existing debt is paid off) is going to come from. And no one in politics wants to talk about it. Further commentary and a spreadsheet are on “Saying the Unsaid in New York.”