Salary Talks for MTA Post Face Hurdles

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, whose representatives will sit down to negotiate with the agency’s prospective chief executive officer today, has authorized a compensation package of up to $235,000 a year to attract New York transit executive Michael C. Ascher to Los Angeles.

But the agency will be fortunate if it ever lays enough track to bridge the gap between what it is offering and what Ascher has on his wish list.

Knowledgeable sources say Ascher has countered the MTA’s offer by asking for a $235,000 base salary plus a $3,500-a-month housing allowance and a “signing bonus” of between $50,000 and $100,000 to compensate him for financial losses.

One particular issue on the mind of the man selected to run the county’s buses and trains is his boat.

Ascher wants the MTA to help compensate him for the unspecified financial loss from the sale of his 43-foot boat, the Alexa, according to sources. Ascher apparently does not want to move the vessel to the West Coast but hopes to be made whole for whatever he may lose in a sale.

“I guess he doesn’t think Santa Monica Bay is good enough for his boat,” said one official. Ascher declined comment.

Ascher’s negotiator, former Los Angeles City Atty. Burt Pines, said Wednesday that negotiations have yet to begin in earnest, but he added: “In the end, he’s willing to bear the loss on his boat if the package is otherwise acceptable.

Pines characterized his talks thus far as “preliminary inquiries,” not demands.

The former city attorney said that in his preliminary discussions, Ascher also has asked for assurances that the MTA’s board will not meddle in the agency’s day-to-day operations.

Pines also said Ascher was disappointed by leaks in the early stage of discussions.

“This is not the way to attract top talent to the city,” Pines said.

One MTA board member expressed anger that Ascher, who earns $130,000 a year as head of bridges and tunnels for New York’s MTA, would seek more than the maximum $235,000 a year authorized by the board. That compensation package would make him one of the nation’s highest-paid transit executives.

A spokeswoman for Mayor Richard Riordan, who chairs the MTA board, said, “The mayor supports Mr. Ascher for the CEO’s job because he believes he’s the right manager for the MTA. He is willing to make the tough decisions that need to be made there.

“Insofar as the negotiations go,” spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez said, “Mr. Ascher is doing what is in his best professional interest at this moment. The MTA negotiators will protect the public’s interests. The mayor, who knows something about negotiations, hopes they will meet somewhere in the reasonable middle, and that Mr. Ascher will soon be negotiating to get the best deals possible for the MTA.”

“If I was negotiating, I’d start pretty high too,” said an MTA board member.

MTA board member Larry Zarian said, “I would not be concerned about what he’s asking for, providing he delivers what he has promised he can.”

But another official said more bluntly: “It’s not a buyer’s market for us.”

Ascher was offered the job last week after the mayor’s two previous choices turned down the position and a third candidate dropped out.

But County Supervisor and MTA board member Don Knabe said, “I’m not going to be put in the position to negotiate with anyone like it is the last person on Earth.”

He added, “My answer is have him ship it [the boat] out here and we can get him a slip at Marina del Rey.”

Other MTA board members said the board could attract other candidates if it chose to raise the ante.

But another official said that the agency’s widely reported financial, organizational, political and technical troubles, not money, have discouraged candidates from seeking the job.