You could learn something about the practices implied by the titles. It took him two months in office to start blabbering what President Kamala Harris told him to blabber. In reporting record 32.5 million ridership Daily ridership is down 90% while future bookings are down 85% year-over-year, according to Amtrak. Not covered by Amtrak Performance Tracking are Northeast Corridor track maintenance costs. that unpaid leave, uncompensated reduced hours and early retirement be taken The expense is irrespective of costs incurred for overhauls and maintenance of fully depreciated rolling stock. Keystone Service, running between Harrisburg and New York, as well as its Pennsylvanian trains between New York and Pittsburgh have been cancelled. Amtrak Salaries in Washington, DC | Glassdoor Between February and July 2016, he sold $15.9 million worth of Delta stock. We have a great team. cash on hand, there remain operating expenses, capital projects that cannot be Anderson will remain a senior adviser through the end of the year. Performance Trackings inherent biases make the investment case hard to prove, with revenue and customer-usefulness benefits buried beneath massive overhead charges that would flow elsewhere as services are discontinued. This is a joke, right? Amtrak Names Another Airline Exec as Top Boss to Replace Former - Skift And given the amount of cash burn we have, Im certain the long-distance network is going to be very different longer term. Hopefully Amtrak and/or Congress will see the wisdom of preserving at least a modicum of service on all routes so that when things improve, it will be a lot easier to ramp up service. Much is dependent on enlightened labor leaders facing harsh reality with learned wisdom, rather than union hall polemics. And it shows. that would like to take over our services. Nothing has challenged Amtrak as (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) Other questionable allocations or indefensible errors noted in the Passenger Association report include: The Miami error was caught by the station manager there and revealed in the Government Accountability Offices 2016 report, and state operating authorities continue to comb invoices for questionable allocations. need to be aggressive in preserving our cash, he said. . While Anderson served as Amtrak CEO as a public service (taking one dollar per year salary), the Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn will earn $475,000 per year. Amtrak's money mystery - Trains But, he added, Rest assured, were going to take good care of those tunnels.. off 10,000 or 15,000 people, that would be far more demoralizing. Laura Mason. Moreover, he performed his study for an advocacy group with a dog in the hunt, which is not likely to produce an independent outcome. Amtrak Executive Leadership | Amtrak Mr. Flynn would be the third veteran executive from the transportation industry to run Amtrak in the last three years. Last week, the transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, endorsed that idea in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee. The report would be rejected by independent, objective auditors from one of the big accounting firms. And without that access, he as well as everyone outside of the organization, with the exception of the auditors and regulators, is just guessing. AMTRAK board to replace CEO: Anderson out - Flynn in The past is best left dormant when a crisis descends, as its So, the train lost more than $54 million? NCTQ's Teacher Contract Database includes policy information on over 145 school districts across the country. Former Amtrak CEO Moorman and current CEO Anderson both publicly stated, and Amtrak documents confirm, that they came out of retirement to work without a salary. the current situation. Democrats who control the U.S. House of Representatives have said they will reject the proposal, which is similar to cuts that have been rebuffed in prior budgets proposed by President Donald Trumps administration. Get your questions about railroads and railroading answered. Amtraks accounting system and management priorities mitigate against that. Richard E. Anderson, 72, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault. At least $1 billion in cash will flow Is the current BoD and its Chair Anthony Coscia the only people capable of sitting on that body? Sign-up for email today! But be warned: exactly how Amtrak attributes expenses continues to be shrouded in mystery. William J. Flynn, chairman of Atlas Air Worldwide, will take over as the railroads finances improve but its political fortunes remain turbulent. Media related to Richard H. Anderson at Wikimedia Commons, "Executive Suite: Delta chief takes unlikely flight path", "Anderson's Retirement From Delta Could Be As Unique As His Career", "Delta CEO Anderson to become airline top dog", "Richard Anderson: The man behind the Delta-Northwest deal", "BIO BOX: RICHARD ANDERSON, CEO OF DELTA AIR LINES", "Anderson retiring from Delta board of directors; Frank Blake named non-executive chairman", "Amtrak Names William Flynn as CEO and President", Aviation Week Names Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson Person of the Year, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_H._Anderson_(businessman)&oldid=1132823011, This page was last edited on 10 January 2023, at 19:35. It aint gonna happen. Amtrak documents received in mid-October revealed only that both men were eligible to receive up to $500,000 in annual bonuses, based on goals specified in written memoranda they agreed to with the Amtrak board of directors. Whether maintenance is an operating expense or a capital item depends on the nature of the expenditures. Mr. Flynn, who will be paid $475,000 a year, was not available for comment on Monday. Amtrak has made service changes due to significantly reduced demand in key markets, according to its website. Watching Washington, November 2018: When a 1978 labor dispute . WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Amtrak said Monday it had tapped Atlas Airs chief executive to run the money-losing U.S. passenger railroad that has seen record traffic. . of the crisis. When he took on the role of CEO, Anderson signed a three-year contract. Projects or ideas for discretionary money Wolfs mandatory shutdown order for all businesses that arent life-sustaining, have kept people indoors and away from any transportation service. NJ Transit and New Yorks Metropolitan Transportation Authority are seeking bailout funds. Said Anderson during the town hall call-in, We have been Richard Anderson - Wikipedia AllGov - Officials It was developed at the request of Congress in 2005 to definitively categorize the companys expenses, according to how and where they are incurred. Controlling costs is important to every organization, and Amtrak has periodically reshuffled personnel and organization charts to make the company more efficient since its inception in 1971. Classic Railroad Scenes: Railroads at Work. J. Flynn, who was hired at $475,000 annually, but told Anderson March 20 he, Tuesday afternoon rail news: With William Flynn set to take over Wednesday as Amtrak president and CEO, outgoing CEO Richard Anderson sent a message to employees today thanking employees for their efforts during his tenure and in the face of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Anderson sends farewell message to Amtrak employees NEWSWIRE - Trains Top Salaries. If we just GovSalaries: salaries database, government employees, government salaries Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson speaks to attendees at the National Association of Railway Passengers during a conference in Chicago, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. voluntarily; and an end to all overtime. They allocate costs in such a way as to make their decisions look good. But we are taking this action to help protect everyone. By all accounts, Mr. Anderson, who guided Delta through a bankruptcy proceeding, has been successful. Amtrak Mission, Vision & Values Amtrak Mission & Values Amtrak Mission: Delivering intercity transportation with superior safety, customer service and financial excellence. Mr. Sanchez, is Stephen Gardner the only person in the whole wide U.S. capable of being Amtraks President? Under current directives, which provide no incentive for revenue gains (because the companys regional marketing positions have been eliminated), what Amtrak manager would advocate for the venue change? Johnson is not an accountant. How much do Richard Cottrell employees make? | Salary.com If I had run my business that way, Id be in jail. According to the route level results of the fiscal 2017 performance report, the Chicago-Los Angeles train generated $49.9 million in revenue but racked up $104 million of so-called operating expenses. News & Reviews News Wire Amtraks money mystery, Why we dont really know how trains perform financially. He did comedy scenes on a "screen test"-like TV series called Lights, Camera . Snow removal equipment? Get the newest photos, videos, stories, and more from Trains.com brands. I have read the documents several times. ), In that 2013 document, the Department of Transportation Inspector General determined that Amtrak Performance Tracking directly assigns 90% of its revenue to a given route, but Amtrak assigns only 20% of its costs and allocates the rest. A 2016 report by the Government Accountability Office states, Indirectly allocating a high percentage of costs, rather than directly assigning costs, increases the risk that revenues and expenses for a cost center or line of business will be misstated.. The proposed $11 billion project, known as Gateway, has failed for years to gain the approval of the Trump administration. The Rail Passenger Association Report was performed by an MBA in marketing. 9/11 and subsequent bankruptcy, emerged even stronger. Because Amtrak has many activities and types of expenses, says Volpes latest methodology summary, from September 2017, Amtrak Performance Tracking uses 45 different allocation statistics. These include: Identifying these metrics provides a roadmap of how otherwise amalgamated costs, including over $1 billion in general and administrative expenses, are to be assigned to each train or operation. If the Chief is discontinued, the non-direct corporate overhead assigned to it will be redistributed to other services, increasing the costs for state-operated trains and forcing more expense on long-distance ledgers. Travelers will be hurt if budget for long-distance routes cut, Amtrak to lead an enterprise in severe peril, Andersons background is prototypical. Is he part of the process, or is he an accounts payable clerk just trading on rumors? With so many costs allocated either Amtraks cost accounting is completely flawed and/or there is too much overhead, probably both. Salaries do not include: Longevity compensation; hazardous duty compensation; expanded duty pay or additional location compensation for New York City and the following counties: Dutchess . ' These are scary scenarios if it means discontinuing entire routes. . Amazing that Andersons Golden Child the Acela is the first to fall the obviously weak link in the Amtrak chain yet he turns it around to make it sound as if the LD network is the weakest using the Amtrak voodoo accounting to try and back it up. SEPTA is taking its own difficult short-term measures including a cut to executive pay, eliminating overtime, and a hiring freeze, while it also considers further service reductions. In the end, a company is only as good as its people. With record ridership and revenues, but critical infrastructure in dire need of billions in investment, Amtrak is at a crossroads, Mr. Schumer said. Click the start your search button . Former Delta CEO Out As Head Of Amtrak - View from the Wing Employee salary and payroll records for 679 libraries. Amtrak Hires Atlas Air CEO William Flynn to Run National - WSJ In good times (i.e. States had already begun to protest some decisions. us out of business, to Presidents who dont want to fund us, to Congress that Amtrak, which has lost vast sums of money for decades, is expected to turn an operating profit this year. network, the loss gets that much bigger.. Amtrak Culture | Comparably Now for the answer from the folks in DeeCee: Fix Amtraks problems with more money. Citing studies from 2005 or 2014 or 2017 without verifying whether Amtrak management took on board the recommendations contained in them is irresponsible. Wolfs mandatory shutdown order for all businesses that arent life-sustaining,, New Yorks Metropolitan Transportation Authority, California residents do not sell my data request. Of service. Rail Group News offers news and analysis from Railway Age, IRJ and RT&S by email. An advocate and harsh critic of former Amtrak president Richard Anderson, whose fingerprints are all over what Stephen "NEC" Gardner continues to inflict, was two seats away from Anderson on a recent Delta Airlines transatlantic flight. How it accounts for revenue and expense is just a big game played on a giant game board. And cost cutting through 2017 management buyouts eliminated field personnel and resulted in a loss of institutional knowledge perhaps the biggest such loss in the companys 47-year history that has permanently diminished U.S. passenger-rail expertise. those riders, only 3% actually rode end-to-end. Amtrak, the national railroad that is caught in a political stalemate over its pleas for help saving century-old infrastructure in New York City, has chosen its next leader. He did not have access to Amtraks books. Dont you think there will be bail-outs? Because after we get through this, the economy is going to be in recession, and that means our ridership will be down and we will be curtailing capacity to meet demand.. As Trains was preparing this report, the Rail Passengers Association issued a white paper titled, Amtraks Route Accounting: Fatally Flawed, Misleading, and Wrong. We highlight some of its findings such as a snow-removal charge for a station in Florida. Judging from the ridership figures above the Acela should be the first to go.. down 99% poor performer even before the outbreak. Yard and equipment charges for overnight servicing at Chicago ranged from $300,000 for the. Mike, I dont like it when people slam my post, even so Im going to slam yours. it is interesting to note that an outgoing executive officer with less than a month of time left in his currentposition is stating policies which could affect the organization for a year or more in the future. [See Passenger Train Game Changer, October 2013.] financial contributions from private citizens and the business community. It only functions as long as its government masters direct it and it must operate as they desire. But transit advocates warned that fixing the tunnels while they were being used at full capacity during rush hours would inevitably disrupt the New York regions already precarious commute. Richard will remain with Amtrak until the end of the year as a senior advisor, working directly for Bill. Now with the outbreak, Anderson said, full year revenues are projected to be down $1 billion and the company projects a $840 million loss even with expense reductions of $110-$150 million. We cant just count on Congress to close our gap., Part of that gap will be closed, Anderson said, by first cutting As for Amtraks current travails, Anderson said the railroad is in line for a $500 million congressional grant in the first of expected stimulus measures intended as a financial bandage through June. for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2019, the long-distance ridership was but Thats reality, and we best face reality and make the very best we can, be calm about it, do what we have to do, and position Amtrak to come back strong when we are on the other side of the pandemic.. solution truly takes a village, meaning all hands wisely focused on the present a lame-duckpresident (mr. anderson) should not state policy; that is the job of new president, mr. flynn. during his three-year tenure at Amtrak, such as reducing food service and Richard Anderson is now a railroad guy. Mayor Petes problem is who he works for. Most of the critics of Amtraks accounting dont have access to the company books and, even worse, are not accountants. I am a retired CPA. All redcap labor and baggage handling costs are allocated to long-distance trains, according to trip length, even though wheelchair service and baggage handling are provided to all trains, especially at New York and Chicago. town hall meeting to lay out a survival plan whose core is to avoid involuntary The real miracle is that the railroad has survived into its 50th year. . CURTIS You speak good and necessary sense (below) at a time of total national insanity. Hirst and Anderson left Continental for Northwest Airlines in 1990, with the latter serving as a deputy general counsel for the airline. Amtrak Vision Statement The resulting process has 60,000 allocation rules, with 1,600 responsibility centers grouped into nine similar cost families (for example, transportation operations), which are divided into 36 subfamilies (onboard service), and finally 44 subcategories (linen). Amtrak is a proud National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Conference sponsor! [1] At Northwest, Anderson was initially charged with labor relations and government affairs. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Amtrak service is vital to millions of Americans across the nation and by improving the customer experience, driving safety, and strengthening our partnership with states and other stakeholders, we can do much more for the American people, Flynn said in a statement. seeking to curtail long-distance routes. In response to an emailed employee question later in the session, Anderson said: There are pieces of the network that ought to be permanently trimmed; you know, Ive said that for a very long time. I have the overwhelming feeling that Gardner is the source/author of all of this. . Amtrak and our state partners estimate we need approximately $1billion in supplemental funding through the remainder of the year to make up for the unprecedented loss of ridership and revenue and to minimize employee and service impacts, an Amtrak spokesperson said in a statement. has COVID-19. Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson is intent on reshaping the state-owned passenger railway into an economically-efficient inter-city operator. The American people seem to be content to just listen to the conversation, blindly accept the consequences of inaction, and then wonder why somebody didnt do something about the situation before it was too late. It would hurt the individuals that bought them, but the big losers would be all the foreign governments that bought that debt, theyd fight tooth and nail to get us to keep payingwhich is when you through the ultimatum at them. His father, Hale, was an office worker for the Santa Fe in his native Texas. NCTQ Teacher Contract Database Amtrak didnt want to add a third car because it would lose money because of the allocated costs. Citing anonymous sources is disingenuous. If the expenditure will extend the life of the asset, it is capitalized and depreciated over the expected life of the asset. The Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit carry the bulk of daily users of Penn Station, which New Yorks governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, wants to expand by annexing a block of Midtown Manhattan. He retired as Delta's CEO effective May 2, 2016, and was executive chairman of the Delta Air Lines board of directors for an additional five months. Last month, the White House proposed cutting U.S. funding for Amtrak by more than 50% over 2020 levels. That needs to change NOW. We recognize these actions have a serious impact on our employees and their families, he said in the message. Like every major accounting system, mistakes are made, like assigning snow shoveling expenses to Miami. If the documents misrepresented the facts, management would have to answer to the Amtrak IG as well as the DOT IG. Most importantly, however, he does not have access to Amtraks books. There must be something he can be charged with. The new performance management process and Short-Term Incentive Plan reward employees based on their performance as it relates to our strategic plan, former Executive Vice President and Chief Human Capital Officer Barry Melnkovic told the in-house Amtrak Ink publication in 2015. Amtrak will spend the funds required to keep the existing 1873-vintage tunnels functional, but put engineering for their replacements on hold. [1] Anderson, who had never considered a career in the aviation industry, accepted the position at the urging of Ben Hirst, a neighbor who worked at Continental as a legal counsel.[2]. Amtrak Has Lost Money for Decades. A Former Airline CEO Thinks He - WSJ but it is very bad form for an exiting ceo to make statements for example about future employment, positive or negative which could be reversed the very first day by the new chief executive. Amtrak's board named Richard Anderson, a former chairman and chief executive of Delta Air Lines, to succeed Charles Moorman as Amtrak's chief this year. But that will be only a worst-case scenario because we dont want to furlough employees.. Executive Vice President, Strategy, Planning & Accessibility. I actually respect Mayor Pete. Moorman was referring to the Amtrak Performance Tracking methodology. Now with the outbreak, Anderson said, full year revenues are projected to be down $1 billion and the company projects a $840 million loss even with expense reductions of $110-$150 million. As less people travel due to the coronavirus, Amtrak has "taken aggressive measures to cut costs to minimize employee and service impacts. doesnt always want to properly fund us, and to states and private companies Amtrak Names William Flynn as CEO and President