{"id":4830,"date":"2015-02-24T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4830"},"modified":"2015-02-23T22:53:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T03:53:47","slug":"mta-financial-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4830","title":{"rendered":"MTA Financial Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aP1bvY7IqZY?rel=0\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This one is going to cost us way more than Charlie&#8217;s proverbial nickel. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/maryland\/bs-md-mta-audit-20150223-story.html\">Baltimore Sun<\/a> reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Maryland Transit Administration failed to verify the accuracy of millions of dollars in contractor-submitted architectural and engineering costs for the Red and Purple light rail lines, according to a state audit released Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The unverified labor bills from four contractor groups hired to work on the two pending transit lines, scheduled for Baltimore and the Washington suburbs, respectively, account for or relate to $232.8 million in overall costs under the multibillion-dollar projects, the audit found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And we ought to be concerned that the accuracy of expenditures were not verified because:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The joint ventures were originally awarded contracts not to exceed $280 million, but the value of those contracts was increased in July 2013 to $547.1 million, the audit found.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The lack of checks on expenditures has led to waste such as:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2022 $10 million in overpayments to Mobility Paratransit Program vendors for fuel.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Nearly $500,000 in payments of excise tax on fuel that the agency is exempt from paying.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This no worries attitude is especially shocking because one of the major firms involved in the project&#8211;Parsons Brinckerhoff&#8211;also played a key role in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4473\">designing the fiasco known as the Silver Spring Transit Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Failing Disabled Marylanders<\/h4>\n<p>The audit further legitimated claims by disability rights advocates that MTA is failing them::<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The audit also found the agency failed to properly oversee eligibility for its mobility program, something advocates for people with disabilities also alleged in a lawsuit recently filed against the agency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>MTA does not contest the audit&#8217;s results.<\/p>\n<h4>Accountability<\/h4>\n<p>Who in MTA is responsible? Will anyone be held accountable for this two-fold scandal&#8211;not just waste of public funds but failure even to keep track of how they are being spent?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This one is going to cost us way more than Charlie&#8217;s proverbial nickel. The Baltimore Sun reports: The Maryland Transit Administration failed to verify the accuracy of millions of dollars in contractor-submitted architectural and engineering costs for the Red and Purple light rail lines, according to a state audit released Monday. The unverified labor bills &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=4830\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">MTA Financial Fail<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,37,130,38],"tags":[533,1260,1259,349],"class_list":["post-4830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mta","category-purple-line","category-red-line","category-transportation","tag-baltimore-red-line","tag-charlie-on-the-mta","tag-parsons-brinckerhoff","tag-purple-line-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1fU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4830"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4834,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4830\/revisions\/4834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}