ALBANY—Legislators in both the Assembly and Senate are behind closed doors going over the details of a compromise proposal to bail out the M.T.A., and are considering modifications that would raise roughly $1.9 billion, according to one source familiar with the negotiations.
The framework appears to be the bill advanced by the State Senate. The proposal on the table would eliminate the graduation of a payroll tax, and charge a flat 34 cents-per-hundred dollars of payroll in all of the 12 counties served by the M.T.A. That tax, first proposed by Richard Ravitch, would raise $1.53 billion. A proposed surcharge on taxicabs will be halved to 50 cents, raising $95 million.
