Lavish dinners. Outrageous credit card bills. No-bid contracts and lax oversight of subcontractors. Nonexistent oversight of the inventory and financial records for computer equipment, “sensitive maintenance equipment” ? and guns. These are just a few of the charges leveled against the Maryland Transportation Authority in an audit released earlier this week by the Department of Legislative Services Office of Legislative Audits.
(Click here to read the report from the Office of Legislative Audits.)
This follows revelations earlier this year by the same office that some agency employees accessed porn thousands of times within a week on state computers. No wonder no one had time to inventory computer equipment.
These are no small charges. Merely fire those who waste public time looking at porn or anything else not related to work on public computers. Investigate, prosecute, convict and imprison those defrauding taxpayers and hiding contracts from oversight of the Board of Estimates.
From July 2003 to December 2004, “nine MdTA employees purchased selected items at excessively high prices from certain vendors” totaling $225,000. Kickbacks, anyone? We wonder if any of these vendors were some of those hidden from oversight of the Board of Estimates.
Other abuses include not requiring architectural and engineering contractors to show adequate proof of hours worked. A random review of four invoices found $1.4 million of $2.3 million billed for work “not supported by timesheets.”
Who runs this place? Lazy members of the mafia?
No other explanation exists for systemic corruption made evident by the report on the agency charged with collecting tolls from us.
In response to the audit, MdTA said it agreed with the report and was acting to remedy problems. But why should anyone believe the agency?
This is not the first time an audit revealed irregularities within the department. Three of the seven findings are repeats from an October 2004 audit.
That begs the question of whether the eight members of the MdTA governing board provided any oversight. The new Transportation Secretary, John Porcari, who serves as chairman of the MdTA board, inherited this mess from former agency chief Robert Flannagan. No members should be reappointed to their posts given their poor leadership. And state investigators should ask Flannagan how he could allow such fraud on his watch.
Citizens deserve to know their tolls finance road maintenance, not criminal behavior.
