CTA president: Agency faces $277M budget shortfall

Chicago Transit Authority president Forrest Claypool says the agency faces a $277 million budget shortfall for 2012.

Claypool on Tuesday said current CTA labor costs are unsustainable and cited pension and health care expenses along with rail and bus operator salaries. The current CTA budget is $1.35 billion. The agency has borrowed $554 million over the last four years to pay for operating deficits.

Claypool says the biggest contributors to the financial mess are “unrestrained wage and benefit growth in labor agreements” and “arcane work rules.” He says the agency’s money troubles have developed over years of shortchanged funding formulas, neglected infrastructure and expensive state and federal mandates.

Claypool says changes are needed to fix the agency’s fiscal situation. He says the CTA can’t “defer the hard decisions any longer.”