Concern over CTA salaries, overtime
Editor's note: Most weeks, Rich Miller uses this newspaper column to highlight a story that’s appeared in his subscriber newsletter, Capitol Fax. This week's column was written by his associate Isabel Miller.
Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, recently told me he was "astonished" by some Chicago Transit Authority employee paychecks.
Moylan, chair of the House Transportation: Rail Systems, Roads & Bridges Committee, is heading into the transit funding discussions armed with a 1½-thick binder filled with CTA salary data. The agency’s gross payroll for all employees in 2024 was close to a billion dollars.
Eight unionized CTA workers made more than $300,000 last year, and about 160 made more than $200,000, according to documentation posted online by the Regional Transportation Authority.
One of the CTA’s top-paid employees, a line worker with a base pay of $62.10 an hour, earned $347,363.11 in 2024. Normally he’d earn $129,168 per year for a standard 40-hour workweek. To reach his 2024 total payout, the line worker would have had to work an extra 45 hours each and every week at time-and-a-half or an extra 34 hours at double-time every week to reach his final 2024 income level.
These are all rough estimates which don’t account for on-call/standby payments, holidays, vacations or bonus pay.
An ironworker was paid $287,602.34 at $59.26 per hour last year. That employee would’ve had to work an extra 35 hours at time-and-a-half or 27 hours at double-time each and every week.
Another employee, a customer service representative earning $40.38 per hour, was paid $273,593.30, putting them at an extra 60 hours per week at time-and-a-half, or an extra 45 hours every week at double-time.
‘Vast amounts of mismanagement’
The Chicago area’s mass transit agencies are facing a combined "fiscal cliff" of $730 million in fiscal year 2026 that will rise to $1.2 billion over the next five years. But, declared Moylan, "This is going to be very hard for them to make the case that they need a billion dollars if there is no accountability on overtime."
"I think there’s vast amounts of mismanagement here," Moylan said. "Some people are taking advantage of the system. We need to get to the bottom of this, especially if they’re asking for a billion dollars."
Moylan said he wants more transparency on overtime, including an explanation for why supervisors are signing off on so much of it.
Last month, Moylan submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to each transit agency requesting the total amount paid for overtime, remote work and their operating budgets. Moylan claimed he’s heard some workers are “getting overtime for [being on] standby for 12 hours a day."
A CTA spokesperson denied Moylan’s claim, stating no CTA employee is "ever paid time-and-a-half or double-time to be on standby," adding, "A limited number of employees are strategically deployed at targeted times to be on call as needed to maximize service delivery to customers."
Moylan said the CTA must change "immediately." He has repeatedly said in the past that he will not call any transit bill for a vote without significant agency reforms.
"We’ve had numerous complaints about [train safety]. They’re not clean, there’s smoking, crime," Moylan said.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter told the Senate Transportation Committee later in the week that the CTA needs better management and coordination and more workers to reduce reliance on overtime.
"Overtime is driven by not having enough folks to do those services," Reiter said. "Believe me, the amount of overtime you have to work to make the kind of money that people say is like 'Oh my gosh,' and get sticker shock. That person’s making a lot of sacrifice in their personal life."
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President Pennie McCoach followed up by telling the committee that CTA employees are often "pretty much forced" to stay beyond their shifts.
"[It’s the] policy that is put in place by CTA. If you are working eight hours and the next person doesn’t come to work, then you’re forced to stay there another eight hours, so it’s more so the policy of CTA, not the workers," McCoach said.
The CTA spokesperson described the CTA as a "lean and efficient" organization and said the CTA has the lowest operating cost per vehicle revenue hour and lowest public funding per trip compared to its peer agencies.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com