As the Central Ohio Transit Authority asks Columbus-area voters for more funding this November, its new chief executive officer is already raking in more money than any other public transportation leader in Ohio.
Monica Tellez-Fowler earns an annual base salary of $363,825, which is more than what the transportation agency leaders in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton and Akron all made in 2023, a Dispatch analysis of payroll records found. She also has a higher base pay than the leaders of transit authorities in comparable out-of-state cities, such as Indianapolis, Austin and Charlotte, records show.
Read More COTA's highest-paid employees, ranked − and search our database to see more
In fact, Tellez-Fowler's base salary is $7,421 shy of the transit authority CEO in San Jose, California, where the cost of living is 85% higher than in Columbus, according to personal finance company NerdWallet.
While the top job at a transit agency is a highly coveted role, pay for government officials should never be based on competition like it is in the private sector, said Rea Hederman Jr., executive director of economic research and vice president of policy at The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus-based conservative think tank.
"This is why government transparency is so important, so taxpayers know where their money is going and if local officials are using their tax dollars wisely," Hederman said.
Sean Mentel, vice chair of COTA's board, defended the CEO's pay, saying that the board considered several factors when it decided how much to pay Tellez-Fowler, such as her experience implementing rapid transit in other states. Before arriving at COTA in 2023, Tellez-Fowler served in a slew of top jobs at transit agencies around the country, including as chief financial officer for Trinity Metro in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area and as deputy CEO at C-Tran in Vancouver, Washington.
The board, Mentel said, also looked at CEO compensation at other transit agencies around the nation before it "unanimously arrived at what we believe is an acceptable compensation package."
“As members of the COTA board and stewards of public dollars, we take our responsibility seriously," Mentel said in an emailed statement.
Tellez-Fowler was promoted to COTA's top job in May , six months before voters were set to decide whether to approve the LinkUs tax levy. The levy could provide an estimated $2 billion in new revenue by 2030 and more than $8 billion by 2050 to fund rapid bus lines and 150 of miles of sidewalks and bike paths.
The 0.75% sales tax will go before voters this fall in Franklin County and parts of Delaware, Fairfield, Union and Licking counties, according to a resolution approved by COTA's board. The tax includes 0.5% that would support LinkUS and 0.25% that would replace a temporary sales tax that is set to expire in 2026.
As voters head to the ballot box, the CEO's salary is sure to draw scrutiny, said Jacob Wasserman, research program manager at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies .
"I think it's probably already happening," Wasserman said. "When an agency either asks the voters or asks the state government for more funds ...there's always questions of their pay."
How does COTA's CEO pay compare to other Ohio transit systems?
To gauge pay for employees, COTA can take a variety of different routes, said Nikki Brandon, the agency's chief human resources officer.
First, Brandon said COTA looks around the state of Ohio to see what the state's largest city transit agencies are offering employees.
"In the transit industry, our first stop, we want to see: Dayton, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo," Brandon said. "We want to start there to see you know, if we are comparable, whether we're talking about the number of employees, the number of (vehicles), different things like that."
But some of the factors Brandon said COTA considers when it calculates fair compensation would suggest the Columbus system's CEO might make less than the leaders of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority or the Cincinnati-based Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), The Dispatch found.
With 2,100 workers, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority employs more people than COTA's 1,100. In Cincinnati, SORTA has roughly 850 employees, according to its website.
And when it comes to ridership, COTA falls behind both Cleveland and Cincinnati's transit systems.
Cleveland's transportation authority, which provides some 24-hour service, gives nearly 22 million rides a year and Cincinnati's provides 13 million rides a year, according to each agency. COTA, by comparison, provided 11.12 million rides in 2023.
While COTA's top leader may be paid better than the chief executives in Cleveland and Cincinnati, the Columbus-based transit agency actually paid fewer employees a six-figure salary compared to its Ohio counterparts in 2023.
At least 117 COTA employees earned gross compensation totaling more than $100,000 last year, payroll data shows. By comparison, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority paid 313 employees more than $100,000 in 2023 and SORTA paid 152 workers more than $100,000 that year, according to payroll records obtained by The Dispatch.
Jarvis Williams, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 208 that represents COTA employees, did not return multiple calls for comment and union vice president Tyson Brown declined to comment when reached by phone.
COTA's service level and subsequent lower ridership are due in part to a lack of funding for public transit in central Ohio, leaders have repeatedly said as the November ballot measure approaches. Although Columbus is Ohio's largest city, COTA spokesman Jeff Pullin said its public transit is funded at a lower rate than both Cleveland and Cincinnati and is more in line with that of Toledo, with a 0.5% sales tax currently on the books.
But COTA's CEO is paid to reflect the level of where the agency is headed rather than where it stands today, Pullin said.
"We don't want her just here through November. We want her here as we're building out the next 10 years," he said. "You have to put the value in and what we're asking of her into that salary."
Survey says: COTA leader makes more than typical CEO of similar sized transit system
Like any other profession, Brandon said transit leadership positions can be highly competitive and sought after roles.
It's not uncommon, Brandon said, for one agency to try to hire someone away from another. To stay ahead of the competition, COTA and other transit authorities use various tools to compare and keep tabs on executive pay offerings, Brandon said.
"It is extremely competitive, and the higher you go, the more competitive it gets," Brandon said.
That competition may help explain why Tellez-Fowler actually has a base salary that's $42,799 more than that of her former boss, Joanna Pinkerton. Pinkerton, who stepped down as COTA CEO in May, had a 2023 base salary of $321,026, payroll records show.
Often, when a CEO leaves his or her post, their final year's earnings can be higher than usual due to deferred compensation and payouts. Pinkerton's total compensation for 2023 was $420,712, a little more than that of Inez Evans Benson, who stepped down from Indianapolis' IndyGo at the end of 2023 and earned a total compensation of $412,885, records show.
One tool COTA uses is a salary benchmarking report from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Brandon said.
COTA initially agreed to provide APTA's benchmarking report, but Pullin later told The Dispatch that the organization asks members not to share such data. The Dispatch has filed a public records request for any reports used by COTA to benchmark pay for employees.
Transit Talent, a trade publication and job board for the public transportation industry, conducts an annual salary survey that benchmarks pay based on an agency's number of employees.
On average, the CEO of a public transit agency with 500 to 1,499 employees earns a salary of $201,077 a year, according to the 2023 survey of nearly 1,000 people. COTA has roughly 1,100 employees on its payroll.
Despite the findings, COTA's Pullin said he was skeptical that the CEOs who participated in the survey were being asked to launch something like LinkUS.
"I think what you have to really look at is the body of work. I don't know what those other agencies that are comparable are doing," Pullin said. "But I can probably say they don't have a (multi) billion-dollar plan to expand transit that they're trying to get across the finish line this November."
mfilby@dispatch.com
@MaxFilby
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: New COTA CEO salary higher than most peer cities' transit chiefs
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