Bosses' bonanza at CTA
Execs get big raises -- and deserve them, agency says
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Most top managers at the CTA have gotten double-digit salary increases in the last three years -- including 6 percent increases for most nonunion employees in early 2008.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times, Courtesy)
But it wasn't like they were rolling in money last year, even with a pay raise that most people would have been thrilled to see, says Ron Huberman, the former CTA president who has just moved to lead Chicago's school system.
You need to take into account that those bosses had to pay more in taxes and also had to start paying 6 percent into pension and health accounts, Huberman says. Then, he says, the amount of money paid to CTA management employees who stayed at the same job actually went down last year.
"They're making less money," says Huberman, who was picked by Mayor Daley to replace Frank Kruesi at the helm of the transit agency in May 2007.
Huberman defends the 2008 raises as deserved and necessary to hold on to talent, especially since the CTA pays less to executives than other U.S. transit agencies do.
CTA Chairwoman Carole Brown also defends the executives' salaries and raises.
"Sometimes, people forget we're a billion-dollar agency that moves 2 million people a day on an aging system," says Brown. "To attract the talent we need to attract, I'm actually surprised we don't have more people making higher salaries."
The largest salary increases were due to promotions. Executive salaries have been frozen for 2009, while union salaries will increase 3 percent, resulting in a 1 percent overall increase in labor costs.
The CTA's top salary of $198,000 -- paid to the president -- has been the same since at least 2004, when Kruesi headed the agency. Huberman says the heads of transit agencies in other major cities make more. The heads of the RTA, Metra and Pace make $214,988, $263,049 and $182,149, respectively.
Other top earners include Ken Kabira, hired last year to the new position of chief marketing officer at $192,231. A "good investment," Huberman calls it, since the CTA expects to make $14 million more this year in non-farebox revenue than it did last year.
CTA union officials say they weren't surprised to learn that 150 CTA managers make more than $100,000 a year.
"The big bump-up in salaries is the Ron Huberman way," says Darrell Jefferson, head of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241.
To search an online salary database of all CTA employees, as well as City of Chicago, county and state workers, go to suntimes.com/data.