Questions surround 400 PR/marketing jobs at MTA
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority still maintains a staff of 400 to work in its marketing and public relations division, at a time when the agency has drawn up plans to slash service, forcing students to pay for their travel to school.
MTA spokesman Jeremy Soffin earlier this week acknowledged that about 400 people work in media, government and community relations and corporate and customer communications - departments that have not felt the budget ax being wielded by new agency chairman Jay Walder to close an unexpected deficit of nearly $400 million.
But, Soffin said, Walder and the MTA board plan to closely examine costs for public relations and marketing.
"I would expect any review would certainly look at things that are not service-related, and that would include communications," Soffin said.
Soffin said the majority of the 400 work in customer communications and at call centers. "That's an area the chairman has focused on specifically to say that we need to consolidate, and this is something we're actively looking at."
The 400 PR/marketing employees first came to light a week ago, when State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) mentioned the figure at a Long Island Association meeting. Mitchell Pally, Long Island's lone representative on the MTA board, said he was not certain of the number but added, "Do we have too many? The answer is yes."
"I don't want to put down what they do," Pally said. "But it's a soft cost." Pally said he is a member of a group working on ways to save the MTA money. "This is one of the things we're looking at," he said.
There are three people at MTA headquarters who deal exclusively with the media; at the New York City Transit Authority there were four people who deal with the media but also have other responsibilities, such as writing newsletters or handling internal communications. At Long Island Rail Road four people handle media and other communications duties; at Metro North two handle media and have other communications responsibilities; two people work at Bridges and Tunnels, dealing with media and other duties, and one person is at Long Island Bus in media and other communications.
In contrast to those 16, Amtrak, a national rail system, has five people handling media nationwide and 62 people in marketing. The MTA has an average daily ridership of 8,739,680; Amtrak has 80,000.
