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Originally Posted by JustJess
You should share the benefits of the surplus with those who work for it, shouldn't you? Why, especially knowing that they'll have deficits shortly, would they decide to give big discounts to riders etc rather than settle the contract with their workers? It's bad form to crow about a surplus and then try to cheap out on your employees.
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I think guaranteed raises that exceed 3% qualifies as sharing a surplus. Although I agree that a fare discount was a bad way of squandering this temporary surplus, I do think that if you want to redistribute a surplus you give it back to the people that created it. After all, you and I paid for the MTA in the first place by buying metrocards and paying our taxes. A subsidized agency SHOULD give the money back to the people who paid it in the first place. THE MTA is not a non-profit organization - it is a government agency subsidized by taxes. At any rate, it is pretty well established at this point that this year's surplus is very temporary - even as currently projected the MTA is facing multi-billion dollar deficits in the near future.
Jess, did you know this (from a
NY Sun article )?
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A subway-train operator starts at $52,644 a year, more than double the starting salaries of police officers, fire fighters, and trash collectors.
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and regarding pension outlays, this (from the
NY Times )?
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"Pension changes always have small effects at the beginning and grow over time," he said... The authority's pension proposal would have a modest saving at first: $2.25 million in the first year, $4.8 million in the second year and $7.8 million in the third year. But he [John J. Murphy, a pension expert and former executive director of the New York City Employees' Retirement System] said the plan would achieve significant savings, more than $160 million in the first 10 years, with some officials estimating that it would save more than $80 million a year after 20 years. Mr. Dellaverson said it was important for the authority to try to control its pension outlays even in a year when it had a surplus. The authority's pension outlays for the transit workers have soared to $453 million this year, triple the amount in 2002.
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