NEW YORK—Workers on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) cost the agency an extra $160,000 in labor costs at one small work site by arriving late, leaving early, and claiming to work through lunch.
The Office of the MTA Inspector General (OIG) analyzed data from LIRR’s automatic vehicle location monitoring system and also conducted on-the-ground observation at three work sites, finding inexplicable deviation from standard work procedures.
At one of the sites examined, Great Neck, a crew replaced a staircase. The project was supposed to take an estimated 2.5 months, with 2,500 labor hours, and about $98,000 in labor costs. Instead, it took half a year, consuming 5,677 labor hours, and costing more than $261,000 in labor costs alone.
