New York state’s transportation authorities are facing billions of dollars in unpaid road toll fees and subway fares.
The estimated $5.1-billion in losses the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) incurred from 2021 to 2024 is being blamed on the cashless toll payment on the highways and the evasion of bus and subway fares.
Subway fare cheating happens when commuters jump over the turnstiles or duck under it. Cheaters also pull on the turnstiles enough to slip through sideways, or two riders slip through with one swipe of a fare card, New York Post (NYP) reports
For the toll roads, the MTA has admitted it is having difficulty getting toll deadbeats to pay up as they don’t use the E-ZPass which automatically debits the toll from a driver’s account. The billing of the unpaid tolls by mail makes collecting the debts hard.
Those drivers, who are tracked through their license plate, have 30 days to pay up, after which a $5 fee is applied for non-payment plus a $50 fine after 60 days of non-payment. Then the total bill is sent for collection, but the task overwhelms the collector, which manages to collect only 8.2 percent of collectibles, according to NYP.
Meanwhile, excessive overtime (OT) charges by prison officials of New York City reportedly cost taxpayers about $283 million in the fiscal year that ended on 30 June.
The OT pay of four officials of the NYC prisons made it appear that they worked four extra hours per day, without days off, for a year.
Assistant Deputy Warden Michael Hamilton was the OT king, logging 2,344 extra hours — totaling $239,501 — in fiscal year 2024 for a total pay of $388,620, city records showed, NYP reports.
Hamilton and three other jail bosses exceeded the mayor’s annual salary of $258,750.
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