Board member: MTA to lay off up to 1,000 workers

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected to announce Tuesday that as many as 1,000 workers will be cut from the rolls of the financially strapped agency.

But one board member, Mitchell Pally, said the cuts, which should save up to $50 million, should not be a shock since administrative trims were approved in the current budget and announced back in December.

"This should come as no surprise to anyone," said Pally, who added that most of the cuts will be in administrative positions affecting workers who are not represented by a labor union. "That's what's being announced tomorrow. This is how [the $50 million in savings] is actually being done."

Pally said it is still unclear how the cuts would affect workers and services on Long Island because the distribution of the workforce reduction has not been decided.

A union spokesman said they had not heard anything definitive about layoffs.

The cuts will likely eliminate 600 administrative workers and another 400 subway station workers. The agency employs about 70,000 workers. The MTA was letting the workers go through attrition, but now plans to lay them off by the summer, sources said.

It comes as the MTA struggles to regain financial footing in the wake of news that its revenue streams were coming up hundreds of millions of dollars short. The agency is still reeling from a payroll tax revenue shortfall and a budget deficit that have forced officials to tighten the belt.

Gov. David A. Paterson proposed this month to bulk up lagging payroll tax revenues by doubling the percentage that New York City businesses are required to pay at the same time that the same tax was being lowered for suburban firms.

Officials have also proposed fare increases and service cuts to offset the deficits.

With Heather Haddon