The Baltimore Sun reported this week that people took nearly 4 million fewer trips on the Maryland Transit Administration’s buses last year than the year before. Ridership was also down on MTA’s Metro, light rail and MARC trains, though not as sharply. Overall, the Sun reported, MTA lost nearly 5 percent of its riders during the 12 months ending last June.
Riders have complained for years about poor service; they may now be voting with their feet -- although MTA blames the decline in ridership on bad weather. Certainly several recent state audits of MTA paint a picture of an agency often lax in handling money.
The auditors found MTA did not have adequate controls to make sure cash collected at the farebox made it to the bank. Auditors also found instances when MTA paid vendors and workers before verifying work had been done, and sometimes paid bills twice.
With us by phone to talk about the audits of MTA is Charlie Hayward. He’s a former federal auditor, and as a contributing writer he has been covering the audits for Maryland Reporter.com. Welcome to the show.
And with us in the studio is state Delegate Brooke Lierman, a Democrat who represents south Baltimore. She wants the state to create a Board of Directors to oversee the MTA.
Here is MTA Administrator Robert Smith's response to the first audit on interagency agreements between the MTA and Towson University: "As Administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, the activities detailed in the Office of Legislative Affairs review are completely unacceptable and totally inconsistent with our responsibility to serve the citizens of Maryland. Once the MTA became aware of the issues with this interagency agreement, MTA: -referred issues with the agreements to the State Ethics Commission in August 2012 -terminated the employee who oversaw the employment services agreement in November 2012 -terminated the employment services agreement in November 2012; -terminated the employment services agreement on June 30, 2013; -referred certain matters with the agreements to the Criminal Division of the Office of the Attorney General in May 2013; and -established a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that became effective on December 1, 2014. While these actions predate my tenure here, it is my responsibility to ensure they don't happen again. Moving forward the MTA has amended its procedures to require additional scrutiny, oversight and approval of these types of agreements. We have also improved our record-keeping and payment authorization practices."
Here is MTA Administrator Robert Smith's response to the second audit, released in February 2015: "As Administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration, the findings of the Legislative Auditor's fiscal compliance audit for the period January 1, 2011 to December 15, 2013 are unacceptable and have initiated new comprehensive control measures that will ensure taxpayer funds are fully accounted for and properly spent. The audit makes clear that past MTA administrations failed in their duty to provide the proper stewardship of taxpayer's funds. These financial compliance issues demonstrate the need for the MTA to develop a strategic corrective action plan that will protect public monies as we build and operate a safe and convenient transit system for the people of Maryland. The process of strengthening existing fiscal oversight procedures and developing new strategies, where needed, has begun. Some highlights of this more stringent oversight include new payroll verifications being incorporated into the Office of Audits annual audit plan beginning in fiscal year 2016, the pursuit of recovery for any overpayment to vendors and our request for a legal opinion to determine if the MTA is exempt from paying state excise taxes on fuel for Mobility para-transit service vehicles. While the actions criticized in this fiscal audit predate my tenure here, it is my responsibility to ensure that moving forward, additional scrutiny and oversight is applied to every financial transaction undertaken at the MTA."
