It seems the only agency in the Washington area more inept at record keeping than the federal government is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. In an audit report released to the public last Friday, Metro admitted that a significant amount of revenue has been lost due to theft. And by theft, they mean cashiers at parking lots skimming money into their own pockets.
As if employee theft isn’t bad enough, when attempting to calculate the lost revenue from the past three years, Metro’s auditors found there were no estimates on how much money should have been coming in from parking fees. While some rudimentary equipment exists to track the number of vehicles using the lots, technical and procedural problems and perhaps managers’ laziness contributed to a lack of oversight.
Metro’s auditor general, James Steward, compared the situation to a store without a cash register. There is simply no accountability for the cashiers to report the correct amount of fees collected.
Adding to the mess, Metro managers apparently ignored the problem for several years. Managers cite miscommunications with Penn Parking, a contractor that runs parking facilities. Penn Parking claims that Metro has been aware of the problem since 2000, but, until recently, had not taken steps to address it. Metro claims that they never suspected the problem was of such a great magnitude. Perhaps the parking attendants who Metro police discovered driving Lexuses could have clued them in, as the Washington Post reported.
Now that the audit has placed the amount of lost revenue somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, Metro is beginning to take the issue seriously. That means another fare hike.
Metro is installing new equipment to track parking usage, and by this summer at least two-thirds of Metro’s pay lanes will have theft-deterring equipment. But, to enhance the remaining third, Metro needs another $637,000. To finance this, they plan to charge more for parking, bus fare, and train fare.
It’s one thing to raise fares to improve service, or to keep up with rising costs and inflation, but increasing them because of internal incompetence is irresponsible. If the fare raise will help stop theft of parking fees and increase overall revenue, then perhaps it is worth it. However, if the past is any indication of the future, that’s not a very likely prospect. While they keep busy running one of the best public transportation systems in the country, important details continue to be cast aside.
