MTA Money Scandals

The MTA, which never seems to have enough money, is paying handsome salaries to two chief operating officers, one of whom hasn’t worked there since May. The agency is paying current COO Nuria Fernandez $270,750 a year. And it’s also paying Charles Monheim $285,000 a year. Where’s Monheim? He couldn’t be located last week. He might be relaxing on a tropical beach, skiing in the Alps, or sipping a salted caramel hot chocolate at an upper West Side Starbucks. Julia Xanthos / New York Daily News Nuria Fernandez, the current MTA COO, is earning $270,750 a year. How did this happen? It all goes back to October 2011, when then-MTA Chairman Jay Walder left to run a conglomerate in Hong Kong. After an exhaustive international search, Gov. Cuomo decided the best person to be the next chairman happened to be right in midtown: Madison Square Garden executive Joseph Lhota. A press release announcing Lhota’s appointment mentioned as an aside that Fernandez would be Lhota’s second-in-command. Lhota wasn’t consulted about the chief operating officer position, then occupied by Monheim, according to current and former transit officials familiar with the situation. Monheim didn’t make any waves about his demotion, at least not publicly. That’s because he had a nifty provision in his contract that gave him a year’s salary if the MTA shifted him to another job title and he left the organization, according to the current and former officials. He stuck around until May and will continue getting pay checks for another five months. Spokesmen for Cuomo didn’t answer questions regarding the managerial moves. None of this is a knock on Monheim, who is a highly regarded transit executive with decades of experience around the world. Nor is it a knock on Fernandez, a former commissioner of Chicago’s airport authority who has worked at transit agencies in Chicago and Washington. The MTA may be leaner than ever. Walder and Lhota cut a combined $900 million in annual expenses. But it’s still an authority where at times, you can still get one working executive for the price of two.