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SEPTA’s chief executive got a $75,000 raise

Leslie R. Richards was awarded a new four-year contract Thursday. She has been praised for her efforts in pushing forward ambitious projects.

Leslie S. Richards, CEO and general manager of SEPTA, arrived on the job in January 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic hit. Next up: fiscal crisis. She's pictured SEPTA control center shortly after starting work.
Leslie S. Richards, CEO and general manager of SEPTA, arrived on the job in January 2020, mere weeks before the pandemic hit. Next up: fiscal crisis. She's pictured SEPTA control center shortly after starting work.Read moreMICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

SEPTA CEO and General Manager Leslie S. Richards got a 21% raise and a new four-year contract on Thursday, providing a measure of stability to a transit agency battered by the pandemic and confronting a looming fiscal crisis.

Board members unanimously reappointed Richards and raised her annual salary to $425,000, up from $350,000 a year in the three-year contract that the new agreement replaces. A panel of three board members reviewed publicly available salaries for the leaders of other large transit systems to help determine Richards’ salary, SEPTA said in a statement announcing the reappointment.

“We’ve been through a tough three years and I really think we’re just hitting our stride here and seeing a lot of big positive change,” Richards said as she thanked the board members and said she looked forward to solving the challenges ahead.

“We’ve been tested, and we are ready,” Richards said.

One challenge could arrive soon. SEPTA officials expect federal emergency pandemic aid to run out next April. With fare-paying ridership still lower than it was at the end of 2019 — and levels of state and local funding in flux — the transit agency may have to make cuts.

Earlier in the week, Richards, Board Chairman Pasquale “Pat” Deon, and other officials visited Harrisburg to lobby state legislators for stable funding as a new budget is being drafted.

Navigating the pandemic, which began about two months after Richards arrived, dominated the first years of her tenure, but she also has been credited with pushing forward ambitious projects in SEPTA’s strategic plan. Those include progress on the long-sought modernization of the trolley system and a comprehensive overhaul of bus routes aimed at improving service.

“Leslie has been the impetus for a lot of long-range planning that was sometimes lacking before,” said Mason Carter, chair of the SEPTA Citizen Advisory Committee, a group appointed by the city and county governments to represent riders.