Facing an enormous budget deficit and drastic service cuts while pursuing ambitious plans to construct two new lines, the Washington Metro Transit Authority is a mess. Recently published reports by Metro’s inspector general reveal repeated mismanagement of federal funds and a lack of oversight, accountability, and transparency. Metro must address serious issues in its management and accounting in order to continue to provide Washingtonians with the transit services they need.
Metro officials are optimistic that the $200 million in stimulus money the agency is due to receive will help improve the situation, though it must be noted that the agency has a history of mismanaging government grants. The inspector general’s report showed that, although Metro has received around $2.2 billion in federal grants over the last decade, poor accounting and limited oversight led to misallocations—Metrobus managers used $264,000 slated for use on 40-foot hybrid electric buses to buy 50 laptop computers, and $46,000 of rail maintenance money was used to buy two motorcycles. These frivolous purchases could have been avoided if there was a single accountable official for the management of government funds. Before Metro gets its eager hands on the $200 million, it needs a centralized and transparent system for spending federal money.
The agency must also do a better job of training and policing its 10,000 employees. The audit found that many Metro sales clerks had been accepting expired farecards instead of properly disposing of them, but because there was no single official accountable for the management of farecard sales, the problem went unnoticed (or was ignored) until the report’s publication. For Metro to be financially viable, easily preventable errors like these need to be eliminated.
Metro has already taken a few steps to improve its gloomy financial situation—the initial $154 million budget deficit has been lowered to $29 million through administrative cuts and a reduction in services, and Metro officials claim that many finance personnel have been replaced in the wake of the audit. Metro also moved toward increasing transparency with its plans to post monthly spending on its website starting in July. Also, its initiative to switch from paper farecards to reusable SmarTrip cards should increase efficiency. These measures will undoubtedly help to alleviate some of the agency’s financial woes; however, Metro risks squandering these gains if it does not restructure itself to ensure long-term accountability and financial oversight.
