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The MTA’s Inspector General’s Office received a record number of complaints last year, according to its newly released annual report.
Officials counted 1,400 total complaints in 2021 — topping the previous record of 1,375 set in 2019 during the office’s first year under former IG Carolyn Pokorny.
Most of the complaints related to “employee misconduct” — a broad category that included probes into “no-show” track inspectors, misused credit cards and falsified timesheets.
Other categories included service issues, agency operations, procurements and a handful of investigations that resulted in criminal investigations or even prosecutions. The office claims to have recouped over $2.5 million and saved $20.4 million more over the course of 2021.
The biggest chunk of complaints, 40 percent of them, came from members of the public, followed in descending order by anonymous complaints, MTA employees and government agencies, the report said.
Of those complaints, 598 were referred back to the MTA to address itself, 344 were closed and 115 were assigned to IG investigators.
Some 335 complaints remain open and unaddressed, the IG’s office said.
Pokorny’s aggressive and public approach to the job rankled MTA leaders in both management and labor, and last March provoked TWU International president John Samuelsen to accuse her of “nitpicking” and “overreaction.”
She left the office in December to take a senior role in the Brooklyn federal prosecutor’s office. Gov. Kathy Hochul will appoint the next IG with the approval of the state Senate.
The MTA expressed support for the IG’s work.
“The MTA has long been encouraging New Yorkers ‘if you see something, say something,’ and one result has been the Office of Inspector General having an opportunity to review concerns raised,” MTA rep Michael Cortez said in a statement. “We routinely cooperate with those reviews.”
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