Henrietta / Albany, N.Y. - The Thruway Authority enters its second year of cost-cutting measures and the first significant announcement in 2013 involved laying off 234 workers.
But, a 13WHAM News Waste Watch Report found none of those employees were among the 99 who earn more than $100,000 a year.
The Thruway Authority is attempting to cut $25 million from its operations budget for the second year in a row.
In 2012. the Thruway Authority attempted to raise tolls for commercial vehicles by 45%. The move was met by public outcry from those who knew some of the increased tolls would be passed along to consumers.
"It's going to be a very devastating thing to have happen," John Wilson of Silverole Trucking in Henrietta said in July 2012.
By the end of 2012, the Thruway Authority had scrapped that toll hike idea much to the relief of local trucking companies, too.
"That's a very good thing,” David Ciufo of Emerson Express told 13WHAM News in December 2012. “Our toll bill is about $18,000 a month, so a 45% increase would have been about $8,000 a month which is a lot of money; $100-thousand dollars a year."
That $100,000 a year total is something the Thruway Authority is familiar with. 99 employees make more than that each year. 41 employees have the word “director” in their job title. That includes a Director of Maintenance and Operations who makes $153,000 and a Deputy Director of Maintenance and Operations who earns $138,000.
Greg Floyd, a senior anchor and reporter for 13WHAM’s Albany sister station (WRGB-CBS6) confronted the Thruway Authority’s Executive Director Thomas Madison about these findings recently. A summary of that encounter is below.
Floyd: "You've got a lot of highly paid administrators at headquarters, might you cut there?”
Madison: "Well you know highly paid is a relative term."
Floyd: "When I talk about highly paid I'm talking about a lot of administrators, about a hundred of them at headquarters, making $100,000 or more, could that be a place to cut?”
