More than 70 pieces of Metro equipment including a 32-inch computer monitor, camera equipment and a portable generator were found in the home of a Metro supervisor, according to the agency’s inspector general. But the employee was able to retire and won’t face any criminal charges because it was an “implicitly tolerated practice” at the agency, according to Inspector General Helen Lew’s summary of the case. Her report said it appears other employees also took Metro gear. The former supervisor in the track maintenance division took some items directly from the agency’s Carmen Turner facility in Hyattsville, the report said, but also took some equipment through purchases using a Metro credit card.
As a supervisor, he was issued the card to buy equipment for the transit agency. His purchases were “certified for payment,” according to the report, even though he did not submit the required receipts for approval.
The inspector general investigators and transit police found the tools and various equipment in a search of the man’s home. The department’s management was not aware that some of the equipment even existed as much of it didn’t have bar codes. No dollar amount was given in the report for how much was found.
The man, whose name was not released, was not criminally charged. The report said the State Attorney’s Office for Prince George’s County declined to prosecute because it wrote in a letter that Metro “may have served to create an atmosphere where such behavior, although not explicitly condoned or excused, was part of an implicitly tolerated practice.”
The supervisor was fired, according to the report, but he was able to retire based on his union service. “Metro employees with vested retirement rights are entitled to their retirement benefits, even if terminated, when they meet the age and service requirements of their retirement plan,” Metro spokeswoman Anegla Gates wrote in an e-mail.
Another employee who failed to follow the approval process for credit cards was disciplined and later reassigned to a new job.
Metro management pledged to improve the agency’s inventory rules and bar coding of equipment in response to Lew’s findings, the report said.
