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Audit faults overtime pay at Port Authority
Overtime pay “flows like water” at the Port Authority, New York State’s top auditor said Wednesday, days before a vote on the agency’s proposed largest-ever toll and fare hikes.
The bi-state authority paid $85.7 million in overtime last year to 5,360 of its 6,977 employees, an audit by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found. More than two dozen of the top overtime earners boosted their total pay to more than $200,000 in 2009, in many cases more than doubling their base salaries, the audit found. It concluded that the agency has failed to rein in extra pay.
“Management has no clear strategy to achieve its own benchmarks and goals for curbing costs,” DiNapoli said. “Before the Port Authority asks for more money to fund its operations, the agency should take a long, hard look at whether its business model for managing overtime really makes sense.” (Boburg and Reitmeyer, The Record)
