NEW YORK - New York’s cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced yesterday that it faces a new $200 million shortfall this year due to lower than projected payroll tax receipts. The state Legislature in May enacted a payroll tax in the 12 counties served by the MTA as a major piece of a rescue package for the authority. The tax had been expected to generate $1.02 billion in 2009 and $1.54 billion in 2010.
“This is a shocking development both because of the magnitude of the under-run, about 20%, and the late date of its discovery,” MTA chief financial officer Gary Dellaverson said in a letter to MTA board members. “As recently as last week, the state was continuing to advise us of their comfort with the forecast. We do not yet know what is causing these disappointing results.”
Dellaverson said the MTA delayed a $350 million revenue bond sale scheduled for this week to give board members the “opportunity to react to our circumstances and adopt a revised budget which meets our self-sustaining legal obligations.”
The $200 million shortfall comes on top of a $143 million cut the state enacted last week to close its current year fiscal budget gap. That cut will take place this month.
“Obviously, it is too late in the year to deal with losses of this size,” Dellaverson said.
The MTA plans to take cash-management actions such as delaying pension payments to push the problem into next year’s budget. The authority last month proposed a $11.98 billion operating budget for 2010 that the board was set to vote on next week.
Balancing the budget “will require very difficult choices,” Dellaverson wrote. “Adoption will be all the more difficult due to the truncated timeframes with which we are dealing.”
