Overtime costs are a runaway train at the MTA — increasing a staggering 26 percent over the past four years — even as the agency prepares to levy fare hikes in 2011 and again in 2013, a new audit shows.
From 2005 to 2009, overtime increased from $468 million to $590 million. And last year alone, 147 employees — mostly workers on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North — had overtime amounts that exceeded their annual salaries.
The workers have been able to fatten their checks because of generous — and antiquated — union work rules, as first reported by The Post in May.
“The MTA has not effectively managed and controlled its overtime costs,” said state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who authored the audit.
“Rather, there has been a culture of acceptance among MTA managers regarding overtime, and no efforts were made to make significant changes.”
His investigators said they found “serious flaws” in the way bean counters at the agency’s Madison Avenue headquarters accept overtime charges.
The audit also found:
* More than 3,200 MTA employees receive overtime pay equal to half their annual salaries.
* A major amount of overtime was spent on replacing sick workers, without determining whether a replacement was needed.
* “Unjustified or undocumented” work for 77 percent of overtime requests.
In the final finding, the comptroller concluded that there was sometimes no justification for work to be done on overtime and that some of the OT hours weren’t documented as actually worked.
For example, a supervisor at a bus-maintenance shop booked 2½ hours of overtime on two separate days before his staff arrived — but no one could verify he was there, DiNapoli said.
Overall, DiNapoli said his auditors found $56 million in potential overtime savings for the MTA.
MTA brass say they have already begun attacking the problem.
In 2010 alone, the agency said it saved $22 million in a crackdown on overtime — mostly by looking at union productivity and how sick workers are replaced.
Those savings are expected to increase to $60 million in 2011 and the out years.
“The comptroller’s audit confirms what we reported earlier this year and reinforces the need for the aggressive actions we’re taking to reduce unnecessary overtime,” the MTA said in a statement.
“We will do our part, but active participation from our labor unions is the only way to make the type of impact we all want.”
The audit also cites the case of LIRR track foreman Vincent Mazzola.
Mazzola makes a $82,249 base salary but, in 2009, earned $148,459 in overtime — allowing him to bring in $230,708 total for the year.
DiNapoli recommended that the MTA find ways to match work schedules to the amount of work needed during certain periods of the day and that it follow up on “59 questionable overtime payments identified by auditors.”