MTA Chair Janno Lieber makes as much money as President Biden

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Running the MTA is a big job. So big, in fact, that the man in charge of the organization is paid about the same as the President of the United States.

MTA Chair Janno Lieber raked in $400,999 last year, according to data published earlier this month by the Empire Center for Public Policy. That’s slightly more than the salary Congress has set for the commander in chief – $400,000 – since 2001. He also earns more than the mayor or the governor.

Lieber — who is independently wealthy from his previous work at Silverstein Properties overseeing reconstruction the World Trade Center site — also makes more than his predecessor Pat Foye. The MTA board in early 2022 signed off on his pay raise during a closed-door executive session, officials said. The chair’s base pay is $365,000 a year, but extra perks like vacation buybacks caused his total compensation to exceed that of the the reputed leader of the free world.

MTA spokesperson Tim Minton pointed out Lieber’s salary is actually smaller than many previous agency chairs, when adjusted for inflation. And his salary is smaller than other public transit executives like Randy Clarke, who makes $485,000 a year to run Washington D.C.’s much smaller WMATA system. Another example is Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, who raked in $735,159 as recently as 2021. Lieber’s pay is also just higher than that of his labor adversary, Transport Workers Union international president John Samuelsen, who makes $384,000 a year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Lieber’s salary “is determined by the MTA Board in consultation with executive compensation professionals,” said Minton.

Government watchdogs didn’t take issue with Lieber making as much as POTUS. The MTA — along with most other government agencies across the U.S. — sometimes struggles to retain talent because private sector jobs come with higher salaries and less public scrutiny. Examples include former MTA managing director Veronique Hakim, who departed for the engineering firm HNTB, and former MTA Chair Tom Prendergast, who is now an executive at the construction giant AECOM.

But some public policy advocates did take issue with delays by the MTA in publishing its executives' salaries and how they are approved.

“This [Lieber’s salary] is exactly the sort of thing that should be easy to find for the public and published in a timely manner because then you can ask the right questions,” said Rachael Fauss, a senior analyst at Reinvent Albany.

The watchdog group maintains SeeThruNY, a vital resource for anyone interested in the compensation of government employees in New York.

Lieber is not the first MTA chair to be compared to the president – at least when it comes to salary. In the summer of 1968, the year the MTA was formed, then-Chair William Ronan drew criticism after the agency’s board quietly increased his salary from $45,000 to $70,000. News outlets pointed out his salary among public officials was second only to then-President Lyndon Johnson, who made $100,000 that year.

“Ronan may be worth all of $70,000 a year,” the Daily News editorial board opined. “But if the MTA board henceforth will be much less secretive and much more open in its dealings, its currently none too large stock of public respect should increase.”

This week in New York City transit news

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• MTA Chair Janno Lieber said he's considering the "maximal option" in the war on fare evasion: requiring commuters to show proof they paid the fare before leaving a station, as is done in subway systems around the world. Read more.
• The construction of two new terminals at JFK Airport could result in a new incentive to get travelers to use mass transit: free AirTrain rides. Read more.
• Students, seniors and low-income New Yorkers will soon get a free or discounted OMNY card as the MTA seeks to speed up the transition from MetroCards to the tap-to-pay system. Read more.
• A federal judge presiding over three lawsuits trying to stop congestion pricing was skeptical that the tolling program is just a “cash grab” that requires further federal review. Read more.
• Drivers killed five people in Queens over the weekend, putting the borough on track to tie its deadliest year since the start of the Vision Zero initiative in 2014. Read more.

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Curious Commuter

Question from Matthew in The Bronx

Where the f--- is the Interborough Express Line? I thought the whole thing was that it was going to run on existing tracks, so it would get up and running quickly!

Answer

While it’s true the 14 mile-long IBX running from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to Jackson Heights, Queens will be built on existing freight lines, it doesn’t mean they can just plop any old train cars down and get service running right away.

New train lines also need stations – 19 of them are planned for the IBX. There’s a lengthy land use process that must be followed. The MTA also expects to use light rail train cars, which are not like subway cars or commuter rail cars, so they’ll need to order those.

The project is still in the early planning phase but is projected to cost $5.5 billion and may be included in the next capital plan, which the MTA will put out in the fall.

As for when you might get a quick ride on the IBX between Brooklyn and Queens, that depends on how fast the agency can complete an environmental review, which is expected to continue through this year. After that, it could take another two years to begin construction on the new stations.

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