The MTA actually doesn't run a deficit, both their operational and capital budgets are fully funded.
The MTA overall is pretty fiscally responsible (im sure you can always find more waste to cut, but that's true of any organization) but is sadly overly reliant on debt to fund its capital program because the city, state and federal no longer really fund transit. This has lead to to about 15-20% of its operational budget to be dedicated to debt service, ie. money not being used for actual transit operation. Furthermore each year the money from the various emergency and rainy day funds in the operational budge that are not spent, are used to make additional contributions (above what is already budgeted each year) to the various befit and pensions obligations.
The MTA overall is pretty fiscally responsible (im sure you can always find more waste to cut, but that's true of any organization) but is sadly overly reliant on debt to fund its capital program because the city, state and federal no longer really fund transit. This has lead to to about 15-20% of its operational budget to be dedicated to debt service, ie. money not being used for actual transit operation. Furthermore each year the money from the various emergency and rainy day funds in the operational budge that are not spent, are used to make additional contributions (above what is already budgeted each year) to the various befit and pensions obligations.
Unfortunately this good fiscal responsibility also means that the governor can screw the MTA out 65 million $ and get away with it because they can manage the loss. http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/03/14/state-assembly-wants-t...