The MTA’s antiquated time beyond law diagram continues to work OT for money-snatch scams as the agency’s $31 million effort to curtail seemingly payroll pilfering is “at-risk,” basically based fully on the agency’s Inspector Overall.
The multi-million effort to end time beyond law abuse is failing as officials dull-roll the integration of in model timekeeping into the authority’s payroll techniques, the IG’s most up-to-date quarterly overview of this intention’s growth said.
Inspector Overall Carolyn Pokorny’s office acknowledged “shifts in organizational priorities” occupy left the multi-300 and sixty five days effort in limbo — even as MTA staff rack up indictments for stealing time below a a long time-previous OT paper-dependent “honor diagram.”
The order is “surmountable,” the IG acknowledged within the file, if the MTA’s original management below Gov. Kathy Hochul cares to repair it: “If administration plans to abandon the order this a long way into the project, then it wants to be transparent about that decision,” the file acknowledged.
Pokorny’s office has been maintaining tabs on the MTA’s time beyond law reforms since 2019, after The Post uncovered allegations of time beyond law abuse following a series of exposés on LIRR workers pulling in colossal paychecks.
Many of the MTA’s supervisors “relied fully on the honesty of staff” in dispensing OT — creating an “honor diagram” rife with alternatives for fraud, Pokorny has acknowledged.
That unsupervised sequence of OT wages has also resulted extra than one prosecutions — alongside with of the MTA’s 2018 “Time beyond regulation King” Thomas Caputo, an LIRR employee who the feds acknowledged conspired with coworkers to land jobs on mega-initiatives where they also can come by away with sleeping or playing hooky out of gaze of LIRR administration.
The MTA, below previous Chairman Pat Foye, hired Morrison & Foerster LLP in 2019 to scheme a opinion for to end and purchase fraud within the future. The firm urged officials to scrap paper-basically based fully OT accounting for “biometric” clocks that require workers to swipe in and out of work, and scan their fingerprints after they enact so.
Transit leaders occupy waived the fingerprint requirement which skill that of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, basically based fully on the IG. Meanwhile, Kronos participation declined within the third quarter of 2021 compared to earlier within the 300 and sixty five days — one thing officials finest investigated after the IG’s office brought it to their attention, the file acknowledged.
Until Kronos and payroll are fully integrated and digitized, administration will lack key instruments to test OT wages and purchase cheaters, the IG acknowledged.
“The integration is a extremely crucial component of the MTA’s time beyond law reforms, which my Reputation of enterprise has demonstrated is seriously wished thru exposing corrupt actors and emphasizing the must decrease wasteful, unverifiable time beyond law across the MTA,” Pokorny acknowledged.
The file also blamed delays on “turnover in project leads,” alluding to the departure of Chief Operating Officer and time beyond law reform process force head Mario Peloquin in March.
Weak Gov. Andrew Cuomo replaced Foye with MTA constructing czar Janno Lieber in July. Hochul has acknowledged she plans to nominate Lieber to a corpulent term. Pokorny can also be a Cuomo appointee.
The MTA smartly-known that OT spending has dropped since 2018.
“The MTA continues to address how simplest to complete corpulent integration of the Kronos payroll diagram,” spokesman mike Cortez acknowledged in a assertion. “Measures already implemented occupy resulted in annual time beyond law expenditures shedding by a complete bunch of millions of dollars and we are dedicated to extra cloth reductions in time beyond law costs.”