MTA back on track to waste
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By GREGORY N. HEIRES
Only a month after Local 375 members brought in the No. 1 and No.
9 subway tunnel rebuilding project ahead of schedule and under budget,
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority decided to give a $41
million handout to a consultant to do an engineering design study
for the expansion of the No. 7 line.
The $41 million contract may be inflated by as much as 35 percent
of the cost of doing the work in-house, say union engineers.
“I don’t know what it will take for the MTA to learn not
to waste taxpayers’ money,” said Claude Fort, president
of Civil Service Technical Guild Local 375.
“With the city and the state both facing huge deficits, wasting
money like this is totally outrageous,” said DC37 Executive
Director Lillian Roberts. To help the city address its projected
$5 billion budget gap for next year, DC 37 in May released a white
paper with recommendations on how the city could save $600 million
through slashing contracting out, implementing civilianization and
attacking government waste.
“Just after management praises our members for their stellar
work on the 1 and 9 tunnel at Ground Zero, the agency farms out
a new project with little public discussion and no serious opportunity
for us to present a case to keep the work in-house,” Mr. Fort
said.
The MTA board met Sept. 26 and awarded the contract to the Parsons
Brinckerhoff firm, which has hired former TA executives, according
to Local 375. Former Transit Authority president Alan Kieper, and
Jerry Foreman, who used to head the capital management program,
went to work there after they left the agency. The TA is part of
the MTA.
Mr. Fort, Local 375 Treasurer Bob Mariano, who is president of the
local’s chapter at MTA New York City Transit, and Mitchell
Feder, chair of the local’s Anti-Privatization Committee, left
the meeting profoundly disillusioned and outraged over the political
process.
“The meeting lasted a grand total of 11 minutes or so, and
in that short period the board rubber-stamped millions of dollars
in contracts,” Mr. Mariano said. “Mitch was one of only
two speakers. They were only given two minutes each to address the
board.”
“It was outrageous,” Mr. Feder said. “I was cut off
before I could get to the meat of our argument. This is no way to
conduct the public’s business.”
The four-year study includes an environmental impact report and
a preliminary design of the project, which would extend the No.
7 line from the Times Square Station to the Javits Convention Center.
The MTA hasn’t yet secured funding to build the project, which
local officials want to use to support the city’s bid to host
the 2012 Olympics.
Profit and other overhead adds at least 15 percent to the cost of
such projects, Mr. Feder said. The administrative and supervisory
expenses incurred by Transit on contracted-out work add an additional
20 percent to the cost, he said.
Thus, the initial $41 million contract may be inflated by as much
as 35 percent.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved if the design
services for the full project are performed by in-house engineering
staff,” Mr. Feder said in his prepared statement for the MTA
board hearing.