Overtime costs continue to mount at the MTA’s East New York Bus Depot, where malfunctioning fire sprinklers still haven’t been fixed after years of leaks and failed tests.
Pay records obtained by the Daily News show the MTA has paid out at least $4.1 million in overtime over the past 52 weeks to maintain a round-the-clock fire watch at the facility.
At least three MTA workers involved in the fire watch have made more than triple their base salary, according to the records, pulling overtime on foot patrols of the facility while searching for signs of fire.
Meanwhile, efforts to repair 2,000 feet of underground eight-inch pipe feeding the sprinkler system continue to fall flat, with the system repeatedly failing to hold more than half the water pressure required by code.
The system, which is supposed to provide fire-quenching capabilities to the massive facility — home to about 250 buses as well as maintenance, repair and tire shops, and MTA offices — has been on the fritz for years, sources at the depot tell The News.
But crews have repeatedly failed to properly repair or replace the subterranean pipe that sends water from the city’s main to thousands of sprinkler heads across 19 different portions of the four-story bus depot.
The trouble began in the fall on 2021, sources tell The News, when a portion of the pipe ruptured under the floor of the facility’s bus wash, near the corner of Bushwick Ave. and Fanchon Place.
Work crews made a repair to the pipe, but it was unable to hold high pressure.
When the pipe ruptured again in July 2022, eight feet beneath a storeroom on the first floor, costs started mounting.
Around the time of that leak, sources say, the MTA started paying bus depot workers overtime to walk the massive facility in a round-the-clock fire watch — a requirement under fire code when the sprinkler or alarm system is offline.
The water line was dug up and patched, but it burst again under the storeroom a few months later.
Another leak sprung under the storeroom last year.
When The News first reported on the growing cost of fire watch overtime last August, MTA officials said a solution could be expected soon.
Agency spokesmen said the pipe would be lined with epoxy in an effort to strengthen it, and NYC Transit President Rich Davey told FOX 5 News last August that his crews were “probably within weeks of fixing it.”
But by December the epoxy plan had been scrapped, and another rupture occurred with the burst pipe flooding the depot’s boiler room.
“The [water] line is so corroded that it’s just breaking in different areas,” one source at the depot told The News. “The line has seen its day.”
At no point in the more-than-two-year leak hunt, sources say, has the pipe passed the required pressure test by holding 200 pounds per square inch for two hours.
MTA pay records obtained by The News show only the workers making more than the a pay cap of $183,376 set out in their union contract. The $183,376 cap is for their total earnings — their base salaries, plus overtime. Workers making more than $183,376 are flagged by their departments.
It is unclear how many workers in total are tasked with fire watch at the depot, as well as why the nearly three dozen employees on the overtime list obtained by The News continue to be paid in excess of the cap.
Of the nearly three dozen transit employees on the overtime list, two electricians and one shop mechanic have made more than triple their $83,200 yearly base salary. One electrician has earned $254,973 in the past 52 weeks, and the other electrician has made $259,773. The shop mechanic has made $259,244.
The $4.1 million total paid out in overtime documented by The News does not include workers who may have worked on the fire watch but whose total earnings are below the $183,376 pay cap.
MTA officials have acknowledged the need for a more permanent solution.
Agency spokesman Mike Cortez told The News in February that money had been set aside for an eventual total replacement of the sprinkler system.
But last week, transit officials said a sprinkler system replacement would be part of a full overhaul of the depot — which may now be delayed due to legal battles over congestion pricing.
“Those permanent improvements are on hold until congestion pricing is resolved,” Davey told reporters of a full overhaul.
But Davey said a wholesale replacement of the system wasn’t immediately necessary.
“We’ve been working very hard to shore up that system, stabilize it — I think we’re very very close, we’ve had some challenges, it’s an old system,” he said.
“It’s taken more time, I think, than we would all like, but we’re pretty close,” he continued. “We’ve been chasing leaks in the system and continue to plug them.”
