Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick Blasts Inclusion of Regional Mobility Tax in State Budget

(ALBANY,  NY) - Today, in response to the enactment of New York State’s latest record-setting budget, Senator Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick & Senate Minority Colleagues railed against the inclusion of a payroll mobility tax – Albany’s latest attempt to throw money at the over-bloated and mismanaged MTA. According to news reports, this tax would hit New York City businesses with payrolls of at least $10 million a year with a 0.895% tax (up from 0.6%) and those on Long Island, and in Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, and Rockland counties with a 0.635% tax (up from 0.34%).

Legislative Majorities in Albany are once again treating New Yorkers and New York’s businesses as a piggy bank. And in doing so, they are speeding up the huge exodus of New Yorkers who are fleeing the Empire State for more affordable parts of the country. Ballooning budget numbers year after year reflect a disconnect between Albany reality. The looming mobility tax is the latest example of just how out of touch they are with the needs and concerns of the very people they were elected to represent.

This budget includes a 5 year allocation to the tune of $68.4 billion to fully fund the MTA’s capital improvement plan. That’s on top of the recently-enacted congestion pricing scheme that is costing drivers more each time they travel into the City.

“Albany continues to treat Long Islanders like an ATM, forcing us to subsidize the MTA’s failure to reform itself. Rather than holding this bloated agency accountable, they’ve chosen to squeeze our businesses and commuters even more. This tax hike is unjustified, unsustainable, and driving people out of New York,” stated Senator Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick.

The egregious wasteful spending at the MTA is a slap in the face to every taxpayer in the MTA region:

• MTA has spent over $900M in consultant costs for the 2nd Avenue Subway
• Phase 2 of the 2nd Avenue subway cost $4.3 billion per mile
• New staircase and entryway at Times Square subway station cost the MTA $30 million
• MTA installed 910 cameras in 32 subway stations at a cost of $21.3 million - that comes out to $23,000 per camera
• The MTA has spent over $650 million on security camera projects since 2002.
• Spent $1 million on a study to examine “psychology” of fare evaders.
• The cost to construct a subway in NYC is 8 to 12 times that of constructing a subway in Europe and 3 times the cost to construct a subway line in Los Angeles.
• NYC 2nd Avenue Subway - $2.6 billion per mile 
• LA’s Purple Line Subway - $800 million per mile 
• Madrid subway - $320 million per mile
• Paris subway - $160 million per mile
• MTA lost nearly $700 million in unpaid bus and subway fares in 2022

New York State is heading down a dangerous path, if it’s not already too far down it. We simply cannot continue to bleed the very individuals who fund Albany’s mistakes and expect to spend at the rate we are spending.