WPCNR ADAM IN ALBANY. By Assemblyman Adam T. Bradley, 89th Assembly District (White Plains) September 2, 2005: It was recently reported that the Metropolitan Transit Authority will end 2005 with an $833 million surplus.  The MTA is attributing this multi-million dollar surplus to a hot real estate market and low interest rates on bonds.  Being that the MTA receives a percentage of the tax revenue from New York’s mortgage recording tax as well as the property transfer tax and the actual revenues from these taxes far exceeded what MTA official had projected, the agency will end the year with substantial profits.

Unfortunately, the MTA has indicated that they may take these additional funds and apply them toward building a platform and a new MTA headquarters over the 13-acre West Side railyards.  

It’s hard to fathom that the Metropolitan Transit Authority actually plans to build a new platform and new corporate offices with this surplus, while Westchester commuters have had to endure outrageous fare hikes and parking fees that the MTA claimed were necessary to protect existing services.  It’s outrageous that the MTA duped the commuting public in the past with cooked books and a bait and switch tactic to justify fare hikes, only to turn around millions in profits a few years later.

The MTA should be implementing a fiscally responsible plan that would apply the surplus toward paying off current debt, off-setting existing fares and those fare increases already planned for 2007 and 2009.  Let’s stop picking the pockets of our commuters and give the commuting public the break they deserve.

Scandal and fiscal mismanagement continue to plague public authorities.  Authorities clearly need to be reined in and made accountable.  That’s why the Assembly passed legislation I sponsored to improve oversight of the state’s public authorities and public benefit corporations (A.9007).  This legislation, which also passed the Senate will:

·        create an inspector general with jurisdiction over authorities to make sure they are given the kind of oversight they are lacking;

·        create the Authority Budget Office to review authority budgets;

·        mandate training for authority board members, strengthen ethics and prohibit authority executives form sitting on authority boards;

·        improve standards for independent audits of authority spending; and

·        establishing new rules to regulate the sale of authority property.

I urge the governor to sign this vital legislation into law immediately so that we can begin to crack down on our Public Authorities. I also call on his hand-picked MTA Board of Trustees to end its reign of mismanagement and invest the $833 million surplus of public dollars into protecting struggling commuters.