Maryland transportation officials potentially overspent untold amounts of money by failing to properly oversee health care costs, engineering contracts and other agency expenses, according to a state audit.
The Maryland Transit Administration didn’t adequately monitor millions of dollars in contracts and other costs, such as approximately $112.7 million in health care coverage payments to current and retired employees, over four years, according to a report by the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits.
The transit administration, a $947 million unit of the Maryland Department of Transportation, is responsible for construction, operation and maintenance of Baltimore’s metropolitan transit system and most bus, light rail, subways, and MARC trains throughout the state.
It’s not clear how much the agency overpaid for certain contracts or illegitimate health care expenses, according to Legislative Auditor Bruce Myers, but that’s a part of what makes the lack of oversight so unsettling.
“There’s a lot of contract standard monitoring that, just like your own bills that you get at home, you make sure you received the services and that you properly pay them,” Myers said.
In the case of the transit administration, “that’s millions of dollars that they’re paying and they’re just kind of trusting people: the health care providers, the administrators, the consultants and vendors,” he said.
For example, the transit administration is auditing health care claims to determine if any improper charges were made, but officials aren’t sure how much can be recovered.
Officials have recovered $17,000 in improperly charged administrative fees, according to transit spokesman Terry Owens. No improper claims have been found so far in an audit of invoices between January 2010 and August 2011, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.
Officials also lacked adequate procedures to oversee a $10 million engineering contract and failed to follow its own contract language when making payments, according to the report.
The transit administration is reviewing the contract issues and expects to have a complete report ready in March, Owens said.
The lack of procedural oversight extends to other facets of the transit administration as well.
Bus inspection records show transit officials inspected 92 percent of buses in a timely manner in 2010, exceeding the federal minimums requirement that 80 percent of buses be inspected on time, according to transit administration reports.
However, transit officials failed to keep records of bus mileage, preventing auditors from determining the accuracy of the reports.
In response to the audit, transit officials wrote they concurred with the auditors’ concerns and are working to correct the issues.
