Port Authority to be Scrutinized Tomorrow

The Assembly Transportation Committee is set to consider a four-bill package tomorrow that would greatly increase oversight and transparency at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Members of the bi-state agency also have been invited to testify before the panel on the authority’s operations.

Transportation panel chairman, Deputy Speaker John Wisniewski, says the hearing is necessary in light of an increasingly alarming series of news reports on the agency’s actions and operations.

“As various news reports have indicated, we have in the Port Authority a multi-billion dollar bi-state agency funded by tolls and taxpayer dollars more or less operating with no outside oversight,” explains Wisniewski. “With reports of toll hikes not being used for their state purpose, ridiculous levels of perks for authority retirees and an overtime ledger in the tens of millions of dollars, the Democratic members of the Transportation Committee are very concerned that we have an out-of-control agency living high on the hog at the expense of New Jersey taxpayers and commuters.”