You’ve maybe seen this already in GMN, but it bears a bit of reflection.

Turns out TriMet—which very publicly held out its hands last year to snatch millions from riders in fare hikes amid service shifts—very quietly decided at the same time to up the pay of its top managers non-union administrative employees by $910,000, including bumps to top management.

That bombshell came from two stories posted yesterday—first by Portland Afoot and then by the Oregonian. The news is sparking reader accusations of disingenuousness and malfeasance at an agency that held up years of employee pay freezes to bolster its arguments last year while wrangling with a sizable a budget shortfall.

From the O‘s story:

[TriMet General Manager Neil] McFarlane said a 3 1/2-year pay freeze had contributed to rapid turnover in the executive and management ranks at a time when the transit agency is fighting for its life.

However, as TriMet held several months of public hearings on proposals to trim $12 million from its fiscal year 2013 budget last year, the pay raises didn’t come up. Not once.

Indeed, the general manager praised the sacrifice of non-union workers “now in their fourth year” of a pay freeze.

Meanwhile, the agency used an opaque budget item labeled “contingencies” to fund raises for managers making around $111,000 or more.

TriMet, predictably, says the pay bumps were needed to retain talent. The knowledge of such top-flight administrators might come as cold comfort to TriMet users, who now pay up to $2.50 per ride, part of a rate hike that disproportionately affects low-income riders.

I'm a news reporter for the Mercury. I've spent a lot of the last decade in journalism — covering tragedy and chicanery in the hills of southwest Missouri, politics in Washington, D.C., and other matters...

6 replies on “TriMet’s PR Fiasco: Cut Service, Raise Fares, Reward Management”

  1. HI DIRK, I DON’T ACTUALLY SEE MUCH REFLECTION HERE, BUT RATHER JUST PARAPHRASING FROM THE OREGONIAN AND PORTLAND AFOOT STORIES. THE MERCURY USED TO SCOOP THE OREGONIAN ON THIS SORT OF THING ALL THE TIME. I’M NOT SURE WHAT’S GAINED BY JUST POSTING YET ANOTHER LINK TO IT WITH A BLOCK QUOTE AND A SYNOPSIS.

  2. I would love to hear all of the examples of “top talent” that Trimet was losing over the last three years because $111k+ wasn’t enough and they had other opportunities to make much more than this.

    I’d love old Neil to give a few examples of that.

  6. Some sleezy ass shit going on at Trimet headquarters. Screw the union employees and the riders and give yourself raises. Doesn’t get any lower than that when it comes to human behavior.
    Worse yet they stole the money right out of operations.
    “retain” “talent”?
    That’s always used this as a template for paying people more than they are worth.
    The trimet managers that did leave left because they knew the ship was sinking.
    All that’s left is a lying scheming thief in charge now who has hired all of his pals to support him as he robs the tax payers

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