State of New York

Office of the Inspector General

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
One Penn Plaza, 11th Floor, Suite 1110
New York, NY 10119
212-878-0000
Carolyn Pokorhy
Inspector General
September 26,2019

Phil Ping
President
MTA Long Island Rail Road
93-02 Sutphin Blvd., 3'^‘* Floor
Jamaica, NY 11435
Re: Abuse of Time by LIRR Employees
Interim Report
(MTA/OIG #2018-62)

Weak Time and Attendance

Practices in LIRR Engineering’s
Structures Division
(MTA/OIG #2019-11)

Dear Mr. Eng:

We were surprised to learn that 26 of the MTA’s top 100 earners in 2018 worked in
LIRR’s Engineering Department, specifically the Track and Structures Divisions. This
disproportionate number of high earners clustered in one MTA department raises questions about
the factors driving these labor costs. While the average base salary for these 26 employees was
$99,008, hundreds of hours of overtime boosted their average total pay to over $300,000 for the
year.

As you know, my office recently audited the payroll for four higli-eaming Structures
foremen and found excessive and unsubstantiated payments for “travel time” - supposedly to
compensate those employees for traveling to their, voluntarily chosen overtime assignments. We
estimated that these four foremen could have received as much as $146,800 in questionable
travel time payments for 2018, which would represent 23% of the $650,836 in overtime paid to
them for the year. We are currently auditing the payroll for high-earning Track workers.

In December 2018, the OIG sent you a draft report (OIG Report #2018-62) criticizing the
Railroad for paying travel time to these four foremen because their Collective Bargaining
Agreement (CB A) does not provide for such payments; in fact, it is silent on the matter. OIG
recommended that LIRR cease paying for all such travel time claims effective December 2018.
In January 2019, LIRR Labor Relations issued a memo to that effect.
Phil Eng
Re: MTA/OIG #2019-62 and MTA/OIG #2019-11
September 26,2019
Page 2

However, a month later, in February 2019, LIRR management suspended this direction
when union officials claimed such payments represented a “past practice” and therefore must be
continued—even though the CBA is silent. According to the information we have received, the
union contends that for decades LIRR has paid workers for one overtime hour (at the time-and-a-
half rate) before and after each overtime shift, regardless of the distance a given worker needs to
travel to the overtime work site. The union further asserts that in exchange for the one hour each
way, labor and management entered into an unwritten “handshake agreement” stipulating that
workers will report directly to their overtime locations instead of their headquarters.

Regardless of whether such a tacit agreement was in place between labor and
management, I want to highlight OIG’s key finding that many workers claimed more than one
hour of travel time before and after their overtime shifts. In fact, some particularly shrewd
workers claimed so much travel time that they “bridged” the time between the end of their
regular shift and the start of their overtime shift. This allowed them to increase their rate of pay
to double-time (after 16 consecutive hours) more often than their assigned work duties
warranted.

These workers submitted timesheets to their supervisors showing their claimed overtime
hours, including whatever amount of travel time they chose. Their supervisors then approved the
timesheets without any assurance that the hours claimed were actually worked and without any
specific knowledge of how much of the overtime was attributed to travel time. (See Report
MTA/OIG #2019-11.)

LIRR management was unaware of this practice, or at least was unaware that more than
one hour was being claimed on either end of overtime shifts. This lapse in oversight occurred in
part because—^in violation of LIRR’s timekeeping policy—^the workers did not code their travel
time claims as such on their timesheets; thus the travel time hours looked like typical assigned
overtime work hours. As a result of this lax recordkeeping, no one knows how much LIRR has
spent unnecessarily on travel time. My office has spent countless hours recreating these costs for
selected individuals, and in these two reports—^as well as analyses still underway—we conclude
that this has been a very costly and wasteful practice, brought about by years of managerial
neglect that allowed a small group of workers to take advantage at taxpayer expense.

I am aware that your staff are also studying possible travel time overcharges by
Engineering workers and that you will take the appropriate disciplinary actions on any violations.
A strong stance by management is needed to protect the public fisc. While I am aware that these
management lapses long predate your tenure as LIRR President, I appreciate the steps you are
now taking to put in place management systems to address this.
Phil Eng
Re: MTA/OIG #2019-62 and MTA/OIG #2019-11
September 26, 2019
Page 3

We will continue to work with you and your staff to identify and eliminate this practice
and other abuse of time and attendance.

Very truly yo.urs,

Carolyn Pokorny

Cc: Patrick Foye