LA Metro Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Wiggins was granted a four-year extension on her contract, raising her annual salary to nearly $511,000, according to a board action taken on Thursday, April 24.
In a unanimous 11-0 vote, the governing board ensured that Wiggins will be leading the transportation agency through worldwide sporting events that will test the agency’s mettle during the 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer games and the LA 2028 Summer Olympic Games.
“It is important we keep Stephanie on board during those events,” said LA County Supervisor and Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn. “We need to provide that continuous leadership as we deliver on the largest Olympic Games the world has ever seen — and we are trying to make it ‘transit first’.”
The board felt Wiggins needed to stay and deliver on its promises for both major events, namely to provide more buses and extended train times to help move both athletes and spectators to and from venues, while reducing traffic on freeways.
The second but no less important aspect of Wiggins’ role is to ensure that rides on trains and buses are safe. The agency and Wiggins faced criticism last year for a spate of shootings, stabbings and even a hijacked bus that kept potential riders away.
She was credited for reducing crime on the LA County transit system in the last several months by adding more Transit Security officers, enforcing payment of fares, and beefing its budget to include installation of bus driver protective enclosures as well as more cleaning crews, transit station elevator repairs and the addition of Metro Transit Ambassadors.
José Orlando, a Metro Transit Ambassador, talks with a passenger at the Willowbrook/Rosa Parks station. (photo courtesy of LA Metro)Wiggins reported in March the agency saw a little over 2% ridership gain, marking the 28th straight month of ridership growth.
Support for Wiggins came from both inside and outside the agency.
Alfonso Directo, advocacy manager for the Alliance for Community Transit (ACT-LA), a frequent critic of the agency, spoke of recent transit improvements he attributed to Wiggins’ leadership.
“We’ve seen an expansion of dedicated bus lanes, ridership increasing, the ambassadors program, safety strategies and the building of affordable housing,” he said.
A Metro bus traveling south on Vermont Avenue crosses over the 101 Freeway on Monday. Dec. 2, 2024. Metro will spend about $425 million to improve a central corridor for buses along Vermont Avenue in L.A. The Vermont Transit Corridor is a proposed 12.4-mile special bus lanes project from Sunset Boulevard to 120th Street in L.A. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)John Ellis, general chairperson for the SMART-TD GO875, the union representing the Metro bus operators, gave his full support to Wiggins. In a written statement, Ellis credited Wiggins as “the driving force” behind adding bus driver barriers to all 2,200 buses on 117 bus routes, to protect drivers from passenger attacks.
“Stephanie Wiggins has been an exemplary leader at Metro since her term began (in 2021),” wrote Ellis. “She has made remarkable progress to make the system safer, cleaner, and more reliable.”
A loose-knit advocacy group, the Bus Riders Union, criticized Wiggins for using law enforcement and its own security officers to arrest people who don’t pay to ride or are loitering or doing drugs.
Leader of the group, Eric Mann, said too many of those arrested or detained are Black and that equates to racial profiling. “The MTA has contempt for its passengers and is arresting Black passengers at genocidal levels,” he said in an interview.
Wiggins was hired from Metrolink in 2021 to replace Phil Washington, who was LA Metro CEO for six years.
According to the website transparentcalifornia.com, which keeps track of government salaries, Wiggins’ regular pay — not accounting for benefits or other perks — has risen considerably each year.
In 2022, she was earning $427,841. That increased to $456,482 in 2023, the latest year for which salary numbers are listed. Starting June 1, she’ll earn $510,806, a bump of more than $54,000 from two years ago.
LA Metro did not release a report on the salary extension and did not release any past figures on Wiggins’ salary.
Hahn said the new salary for Wiggins “brings our CEO up to par with salaries of leaders of similar transit agencies.”
In comparison and using only 2023 figures from transparentcalifornia.com, Foothill Transit CEO Doran Barnes’ salary was listed at $337,985. Habib Balian, the CEO of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority’s salary was listed at $473,715. Los Angeles County CEO Fesia Davenport’s 2023 salary was listed at $566,208.
The annual salary of New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority CEO Janno Lieber was reported at $365,000, according to the New York Post.
While no board member disagreed with the salary or the four-year extension, some pointed out the troubled waters Wiggins still has to wade through, including the unhoused sleeping in stations and riding trains, and possible structural deficits.
“I know things are not perfect but they’ve gotten a lot better,” said Supervisor and Board Member Hilda Solis. She praised Wiggins for helping Metro build affordable housing on surplus property.
Supervisor and Metro board member Kathryn Barger, who called Wiggins “incredible,” said she may have to deal with decreasing revenues and deficits while maintaining quality bus and train service. “It will take someone thinking outside the box,” Barger said.
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