City workers have been getting clocked by the MTA’s crumbling subway system and are on track to set a record for being late to their jobs because of service disruptions.
So far this year, city employees have missed 17,143 hours of work due to transit delays, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office. That puts city workers on pace to miss nearly 26,000 hours of work for the year — a nearly 30% increase from previous years.
Workers missed 19,417 hours due to transit delays in all of 2016. In 2015, subway headaches were blamed for 19,142 missed hours, up 5% from 18,191 in 2014.
“That shows very clearly that this is a problem that has been getting worse,” said Nick Sifuentes, deputy director of transit advocacy group Riders Alliance. “It went from being a slow-burn crisis to an emergency.”
The Daily News asked the IBO last week to crunch the numbers.
The IBO analysis showed that nearly all the dates with the most missed hours of work due to a transit problem correspond with major subway meltdowns. And most of the top dates over the past four years occurred in 2016 and 2017.
The findings show the real impact delays can have on city operations.
On Jan. 9, for example, city employees missed a total of 1,075 hours of work when transit problems made them late.
That Monday morning, an ice-blocked pipe started spilling water onto the tracks at the West 4th St.-Washington Square station, disrupting commutes on eight subway lines.
The leak wasn’t fixed until 9:48 a.m. — three hours after the mayhem began.
April 21 was another date where large numbers of city employees punched in late for work due to subway issues.
That Friday morning a power outage shut down the 53rd St.-Seventh Ave. station for several hours, backing up trains throughout the underground system. In total, 1,066 city work hours were lost, according to the IBO.
City workers missed another 725 hours due to transit problems on May 9.
That morning a power outage at the Dekalb Ave. station at 8:30 a.m. snarled rides on the B, C, D, F, N, Q, R and W lines. Service was restored an hour later.
A spokesman for Mayor de Blasio said the lost hours are more proof that the state should back his tax plan to save the subway system.
“Riders’ cries might be out of Albany’s earshot, but they’re mad as hell and they won’t stand for it anymore — including our city employees,” sai d mayoral spokesman Austin Finan.
“The state should step up now and support the mayor’s plan to tax the wealthiest 1 percent to pay for the fix of our subways and buses, and return the half-million dollars it took from the MTA to fund the immediate turnaround plan. It’s time to get to work — literally.”
An MTA spokesman said the city should shoulder some of responsibility and pick up part of the tab to fix the subway system.
“Any increase in delays experienced on the subway show the critical need to support and fund the MTA’s Subway Action Plan and why City Hall and Mayor de Blasio should step up and fund their half of the plan,” the spokesman, Shams Tarek, said.
The IBO based its analysis on a city worker database known as the Citywide Human Resources Management System. The database shows all excused lateness due to transit delays.
When a city worker is late for a reason outside their control, they can enter a code explaining their tardiness.
They must also submit proof. Riders can call or go online to request delay verification letters from the MTA.
If city workers get the late arrivals excused, they are paid for the missed time.
Still, the transit delays lead to squandered tax dollars.
The median salary for a city employee in 2015 was $67,372, or about $32.40 an hour for a 40-hour work week. Based on that hourly rate, the 17,143 hours that were excused so far this year equals about $555,000 in pay.
That means a half-million dollars went to city workers for time they were stuck in transit.
And the problem is certainly far worse.
While the city database captures worker information for major agencies — including the NYPD, FDNY and the Sanitation Department — three large departments are not included.
The database does not provide information on employees at the Department of Education, NYCHA and the Health and Hos pitals Corporation. These agencies have a combined workforce of more than 200,000 employees.
Many of these employees are likely straphangers who have also ended up late for work because of shoddy subway service.
Kenneth Wynder, president of the Law Enforcement Employee Benevolent Association, said he tells his 800 members to document delays, especially because they start their jobs at times when there might be service disruptions.
DNAinfo New York reported last year that the MTA gave out 129,000 tardy slips in 2015. The agency handed out 31,000 in 2010.
“We do encourage them to call MTA and get that slip,” said Wynder, whose members include the Department of Environmental Protection police officers, Department of Transportation inspectors and Sanitation enforcement agents.
“Members are utilizing them because they are saving time and saving punishment.”
The MTA and its aging subway system has come under fire from fed-up straphangers and elected officials in the past few years as delays have exploded and ridership has ballooned.
Just in the past year there has been a dramatic drop in reliable service.
In May, 67,452 weekday subway trains were delayed, according to the most recent agency data. In May 2016, the number was 50,436.
The transit system’s failures crescendoed into an all-out crisis this summer when Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency and picked Joe Lhota as the agency’s chairman to oversee the Subway Action Plan, an $800 million rapid repair program.
Sifuentes, of the Riders Alliance, said that the IBO data shows what kind of impact subway delays can have on anyone with a job in the city.
Many hourly workers don’t have their subway delays excused and end up with smaller paychecks, he said.
“For them the lost pay could mean choosing between, ‘I might not make rent this month or I won’t buy groceries,'” Sifuentes said.
Controller Scott Stringer’s office conducted a survey of straphangers in July to gauge the economic impact of subway delays. The findings showed that residents of lower-income city zip codes were more likely to be reprimanded for being late to work.
Subway service problems can also be a double whammy for some families — making parents late for work and preventing them from picking up children on time from day care, the survey showed.
“We may have a new record in excused lateness because of train delays,” Stringer said in a statement to The News about the IBO analysis.
“What there is no excuse for, is the train delays themselves.”
