When Federal Transit Administration officials declined to fund Phase 2 of the $6 billion Dulles Rail project, they cited two main reasons. First, the mass transit project’s overall cost-benefit rating was “medium-low,” making it ineligible for the FTA’s New Starts program. Second, federal officials had little confidence that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Board could successfully manage a transportation project as large and complex as Dulles Rail. The fact that MWAA paid an outside management consultant the equivalent of $7,000 an hour to help board members deal with “important organizational change issues” is proof that their concerns were well-founded.
As The Examiner’s Liz Essley reported, MWAA signed three no-bid contracts for a total of $173,000 with Pennsylvania-based “change” guru Gregory Shea to lead group discussions at the board’s annual retreats. The news surfaced just weeks after a federal inspector general’s audit found that two-thirds of all MWAA contracts more than $200,000 were not competitively bid between 2009 and 2011.
The lack of competitive bidding in projects involving tax dollars is inexcusable, but MWAA has never been known for its prudent fiscal management. After spending $1.5 billion on a 3.8-mile automated “People Mover,” it quietly scrapped the original plan for a continuous oval-shaped loop to quickly ferry passengers to and from Washington Dulles International Airport’s far-flung terminals. The current hook-shaped configuration is an apt metaphor for a board that routinely leaves the public on one by overpromising and underdelivering.
MWAA board members are supposed to be scouring the authority’s contracts and demanding evidence that staff is getting the best possible prices. Their propensity to treat themselves to expensive food and drink and stay in luxury accommodations in places like Hawaii suggests their priorities are elsewhere.
As with their counterparts at the General Services Administration — which had the gall to reward $1 billion in bonuses to the geniuses behind the agency’s $840,616 conference in Las Vegas — MWAA board members’ excessive spending is particularly repugnant because they are supposed to be the grown-ups in their agency. At $7,000 an hour, the “change” guru should have reminded them that they’re supposed to be reducing unnecessary spending, not enjoying the waste.
