{"id":4445,"date":"2026-07-14T09:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4445"},"modified":"2026-07-14T09:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T09:07:12","slug":"nychas-465000-a-year-plumber-is-just-a-taste-of-its-massive-dysfunction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4445","title":{"rendered":"NYCHA’s $465,000-a-year plumber is just a taste of its massive dysfunction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Want to make banker money without stepping foot on Wall Street? Try plumbing for the New York City Housing Authority.<\/p>\n

Read more Ro Khanna\u2019s West Bank \u2018hostage\u2019 stunt is a new low for a total phony<\/a><\/p>\n

From July 2024 through June 2025, NYCHA plumber supervisor Jakub Markowski earned\u00a0$465,000, including $332,000 for nearly 2,600 hours in overtime \u2014 more than the mayor and City Council speaker make combined<\/em>.<\/p>\n

While he collected these checks, Markowski also operated two private plumbing companies.<\/p>\n

The Buildings Department is now\u00a0investigating\u00a0him.<\/p>\n

As the city\u2019s ascendant socialist left pushes for more housing in public or nonprofit hands, NYCHA\u2019s history presents a sordid tale of dysfunction and corruption, with Markowski the latest apparent example.<\/p>\n

Lest we forget, Shola Olatoye, NYCHA\u2019s chairwoman under Mayor Bill de Blasio, lied for years under oath to the federal government about nonexistent lead-paint inspections and other safety failures.<\/p>\n

As part of the feds\u2019\u00a0settlement with the city, since January 2019, an independent monitor has been in place to oversee NYCHA\u2019s compliance.<\/p>\n

Yet federal oversight has not stopped the rot. In 2024, Damien Williams, the Biden-appointed US attorney for the Southern District of New York,\u00a0charged 70 NYCHA current and former employees with bribery and extortion.<\/p>\n

The takedown represented the largest number of bribery charges brought in a single day in the Justice Department\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

All 70\u00a0pleaded guilty or were convicted.<\/p>\n

Nor has public ownership delivered livable conditions for tenants. In fact, they\u2019re bad enough to qualify as a moral stain on this city.<\/p>\n

On July 6, the federal monitor released its\u00a0latest quarterly report. Despite modest progress, it shows that NYCHA buildings are riddled with hazards.<\/p>\n

Under the federal agreement, NYCHA is supposed to ensure that no more than 15% of mold complaints involve visible mold of 10 square feet or more. In the latest report, 86% did.<\/p>\n

Without acknowledging why city government has long proved such a poor landlord, Democratic Socialists want to put even\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0housing under public or nonprofit control, in the name of affordability.<\/p>\n

The far left has not shown why NYCHA is a success story in disguise, or why new public housing wouldn\u2019t devolve into similar dysfunction.<\/p>\n

Instead, they fall back on the claim that NYCHA is underfunded.<\/p>\n

About 80% of NYCHA buildings are 50 years old or more, well past most buildings\u2019 useful lives.<\/p>\n

Rents cannot rise to support an estimated $80 billion in backlogged repairs and capital needs. The system has thus grown more\u00a0dependent\u00a0on taxpayer-funded city subsidies.<\/p>\n

NYCHA\u2019s capital expenditures on capital improvements\u00a0increased\u00a048% between 2021 and 2025, to $1.2 billion per year, with most new money coming from city and state sources.<\/p>\n

One big reason for NYCHA\u2019s recent financial distress is that more tenants aren\u2019t paying their rent.<\/p>\n

NYCHA collected only 68.6% of its anticipated rent in\u00a0fiscal 2025, down sharply from 89.6%\u00a0six years\u00a0earlier.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not because their rents are too high. NYCHA households\u2019\u00a0rents average\u00a0$621 per month, capped at 30% of household gross income.<\/p>\n

Read more Democrats\u2019 civil war is blazing \u2014 now the GOP will feast<\/a><\/p>\n

Only\u00a038.4% of NYCHA families are employed, and the average income of a NYCHA household was $26,129.<\/p>\n

Sadly, they\u2019re trapped by the system\u2019s disincentives to work and earn more, a broken public-education system and the lack of new housing supply.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it costs NYCHA\u00a0$1,419\u00a0per month on average to operate and barely maintain each unit.<\/p>\n

Despite\u00a0165,000 families waiting to enter, NYCHA has just 6,740 vacant units and takes an average of\u00a0371 days\u00a0to turn one around.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the private sector maintains pre-1974 rent-stabilized housing at an average cost of\u00a0$1,192\u00a0per month.<\/p>\n

In buildings entirely composed of stabilized units, that figure is\u00a0$1,037\u2014 about 27% less than NYCHA\u2019s average.<\/p>\n

In May, a typical market apartment in Manhattan and Brooklyn spent only about\u00a037 days\u00a0before being rented.<\/p>\n

Rent-stabilized owners effectively sustain an affordable-housing program for 1 million units \u2014 over five times NYCHA\u2019s\u00a0177,000\u00a0\u2014 and at lower average cost.<\/p>\n

Yet Mayor Mamdani and his housing czar Cea Weaver treat private landlords as villains.<\/p>\n

The duo is\u00a0planning to funnel bankrupt buildings to their friends in the nonprofit-housing world.<\/p>\n

Yet, if anything, NYCHA offers real-world evidence\u00a0against<\/em>\u00a0greater public-sector involvement.<\/p>\n

Even with supposedly strict processes that aim to prevent favoritism, kickbacks and self-dealing, people will find ways to work the system.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Free, competitive markets reduce corruption because they leave government officials with fewer opportunities to intervene.<\/p>\n

The private sector should simply build and operate much more housing in New York.<\/p>\n

Private owners can\u2019t afford to pay their plumbers $465,000 because they need to stay in business and can\u2019t raise taxes.<\/p>\n

Instead, NYCHA will just keep failing \u2014 and asking taxpayers to keep funding six-figure overtime rides on its gravy train.<\/p>\n

John Ketcham is director of cities and a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Time to win the Battle of Hormuz \u2014 and enforce freedom of navigation<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York City Housing Authority plumber supervisor Jakub Markowski earned\u00a0$465,000 between July 2024 and June 2025, including $332,000 for nearly 2,600 hours in overtime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nNYCHA's $465,000-a-year plumber is just a taste of its massive dysfunction - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=4445\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NYCHA's $465,000-a-year plumber is just a taste of its massive dysfunction - 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