As a public official in Suffolk County, I hear every day from commuters who feel like the MTA treats Long Island as its permanent piggy bank. They are right. We send the MTA well over $20 million a year just for Long Island Rail Road station “maintenance,” on top of the taxes, fees, and surcharges that already flow their way. Yet anyone who has stood on the platforms in Medford or Bellport can see the truth: years of neglect, basic repairs ignored, and residents planting flowers just to make their stations look halfway presentable. That is not maintenance; it is contempt for the riders and taxpayers footing the bill.
The pattern repeats itself inside the system. The MTA set a recent record by shelling out nearly $1.4 billion in overtime. One Long Island Rail Road foreman actually took home more than the railroad’s president. That should have set off every alarm in the building. Instead, no one in management was held accountable. Meanwhile, the authority spent tens of millions of dollars on fingerprint scanners and software upgrades to crack down on timecard abuse, then let them sit idle for years. When cost-saving opportunities appear, they are watered down or reversed — such as the mobile-ticket “fix” that still allows fare evasion while cutting the time riders have to use the tickets they paid for.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli has audited the MTA repeatedly and found the same thing: waste, fraud, and abuse. He said he can recommend fixes but cannot force the authority to act on them. That is why I support legislation to create a fiscal control board for the MTA — an independent financial watchdog with real power to implement reforms, track every dollar, and demand results. Until someone takes the checkbook away, commuters will keep getting hit with higher fares, congestion pricing, and new fees while the waste continues unchecked. Long Island riders deserve better than to be treated like an endless source of cash for a mismanaged bureaucracy.