(The following story by Joshua Robin appeared on the Newsday website on April 15.)
NEW YORK — More than 40 Metro-North employees were found over the course of almost a year to have left work when they were supposed to be repairing and inspecting cars in an upstate railyard, Newsday has learned.
Investigators with the MTA Inspector General’s Office witnessed dozens of nighttime employees exiting the Croton-Harmon facility in Croton-on-Hudson during a 10-month probe. They headed to a pizzeria, bars or simply home, staying away for far longer than their 30-minute lunch break.
They escaped notice by having colleagues punch them out using a timeclock that is not monitored by a security camera, or after supervisors signed time cards with no departure time stamps, according to an Inspector General’s report acquired under the Freedom of Information Act.
On one occasion in July, investigators spotted electrician James Guski leave the facility at 6:40 p.m., wearing jeans and a T-shirt. A surveillance camera at the facility caught him returning shortly before midnight, wearing what appears to be flannel shorts and sandals.
Guski said in an interview that he was allowed to leave because he was on overtime, adding that an arbitrator will hear the case. Nevertheless, he was among six employees fired.
Most of the abuse occurred last spring and summer. In all, 42 people were found during that period to have collected more than 260 hours of undeserved pay, the report said. With employees at the yard each earning from $15 to $30 an hour not including benefits, the lost pay totals at least $4,000.
The Inspector General’s office called it likely the biggest time stealing scheme in MTA history.
“This type of behavior will not be tolerated,” Peter A. Cannito, president of Metro-North Railroad, said Thursday in an interview. The railroad has since installed a stricter, computerized time registering system and installed another closed-circuit camera.
Officials stressed that passenger safety was not compromised by the missed work, despite the fact that the absent employees were supposed to be conducting 60-day car inspections.
“It was lost productivity, not safety,” Cannito said, noting that further inspections are done before cars are dispatched.
The MTA said there is no pattern of fraud at the agency, with spokesman Tom Kelly calling the time-stealing case “individual greed and stupidity.”
The scheme is the most recent of several cases of alleged impropriety at the agency.
A plumber allegedly connected to organized crime working as a contractor for the agency faces trial on charges he bilked the MTA out of millions of dollars. In April, a developer renovating the new MTA headquarters downtown pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and money laundering after ripping off $1 million.
Officials in the Inspector General’s Office pointed out that it was Metro-North officials who first alerted them of possible time stealing.
A supervisor at the sprawling Croton-Harmon facility last year told investigators there on another matter that people might be leaving on the job. Workers on the 4 p.m. to midnight shift are entitled to a 20-minute lunch, with five minutes before and after to wash.
The Inspector General’s Office set up a sting, watching employees leave the yard during work and then followed them — sometimes at high speeds — snapping pictures and videotaping.
On one occasion in July, an employee who had already left the yard for more than an hour attempted to leave again but returned after spotting someone — an investigator — videotaping him from a parked car.
A short while later, several other employees also returned, apparently after they were tipped off that they were being watched.