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There's a certain poster that unequivocally believes that the MTA is a first class, well managed organization that provides a great service.
The MTA is forced to act in cases of egregious fraud like this. How many cases are there of smaller scale fraud that never gets caught?
These guys were putting in 2,000+ hours of OT fraud. How many put in 500 hours and never even get questioned?
The attorney for Joseph Balestra, 52, claimed in new court papers that the alleged dozing was “sanctioned by often-ambiguous rules, policies and ‘handshake agreements’ between the union and LIRR management.”
In 2018, he earned $348,000 from the LIRR, including $241,000 in OT after submitting timesheets for 2,954 OT hours, on top of 2,000 regular hours worked, the court filing shows. That comes out to eight hours of extra pay each day for the year
Prosecutors said the crew used union seniority to rack up “improbable” amounts of overtime pay by landing jobs on mega-projects where they could maintain an “informal rotation” where one person would leave and the rest of the group would cover for him.
Both projects “had several positions where more LIRR employees were assigned than were necessary to allow the construction to progress,” according to court docs.
"Balestra’s attorney wrote he was only needed during the beginning and end of shifts to take tracks in and out of service on the Hudson Yards project, leaving him several hours “with nothing to do” other than sleep. He was also paid overtime to drive between Long Island and Manhattan, a practice that LIRR officials have kept in place despite the ongoing case."
Guy plead guilty to a very limited amount of OT fraud, and is paying back less than $20k. Yet Mr. Balestra via his mouthpiece is bellyaching about how badly he's being treated.
This has been going on a long time. When will this BS stop?
LIRR and MTA for that matter are so corrupt it's a sin. This goes back ages and no governor or anyone else as cujones to take on not just the unions, but equally in it up to their necks boards and others in charge.
People outside NY think we shovel money into the pockets of welfare recipients and that's what leads to our high cost of living.
The reality is that we shovel money into the pockets of a select group of low skilled yet highly paid groups who are politically connected, scamming the system. The MTA is one of those groups, but there are a bunch of others. The abuses in this case may be tough to ignore, but anyone remember Nassau Police ringing up similar levels of overtime walking dogs a few years back?
"Balestra’s attorney wrote he was only needed during the beginning and end of shifts to take tracks in and out of service on the Hudson Yards project, leaving him several hours “with nothing to do” other than sleep. He was also paid overtime to drive between Long Island and Manhattan, a practice that LIRR officials have kept in place despite the
That assertion should infuriate people. For those not in the know about how these things are supposed to work: the Roadway Worker in Charge or Employee Responsible for On-Track Protection (the guy taking tracks out of service) needs to be on site or leave control of the tracks in control of rail traffic control. He's not just Responsible to take the tracks out of service and leave, but also to direct the entry of any work group or equipment into those tracks, and ensure that all parties working on the tracks are adhering to the proper methods of on-track Protection, (aka "not getting hit by trains"), and then ensuring that the tracks are in safe and functional condition before returning to service.
This is why the Federal Railroad Administration lights up railroads and Employees with personal fines for this nonsense. He's lucky nobody got killed on his job site in his absence.
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