(Screenshot: Facebook/New York Assembly Republican Conference) NYS Assemblyman Ed Ra introduces legislation calling for a forensic audit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Calls for Forensic Audit
By Hank Russell
Assemblyman Ed Ra (R-Franklin Square) joined his Minority Conference colleagues at a press conference on March 3 to announce his bill mandating a comprehensive forensic audit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). The conference said that this bill was conceived following numerous high-profile incidents involving wasteful spending, fraud and abuse as well as the recent introduction of the highly controversial congestion pricing program amid calls for infrastructure financing.
Ra’s legislation would require the MTA to contract with a certified independent accounting firm to perform a comprehensive, forensic audit of the agency, compile a report on redundancies and inefficiencies with analysis, suggestions and recommendations, and compile a report on at least six governance action-plan proposals for alternative governance structures.
For years, MTA payroll costs, most notably overtime expenditures, have been allowed to skyrocket and provided an environment for fraud and abuse to thrive. Recent, high-profile convictions of MTA employees shined a light on the fraudulent schemes. While the MTA has attempted to introduce reforms, the results have been inadequate at best. In 2024, the MTA still spent $1.4 billion in overtime. Other notable shortfalls and inefficiencies include:
more than $5 billion in unpaid tolls from 2021 to 2024
more than $700 million lost due to fare evasion in 2022
An audit of the emergency intercom system called “Help Point” revealing that 50% of calls were pranks after a $250 million investment
A plan to spend $1 million to study the psychology of fare evaders
Spending nearly $8 billion on flood-resilience projects following Superstorm Sandy and an audit revealed three out of 12 flood door gaskets were broken
“The MTA is failing taxpayers. It seems like every few months, New York taxpayers are met with a story about a new scandal involving fraud and mismanagement of the agency, while every few years the agency comes to Albany looking for new dedicated revenues and funding,” said Ra, the ranking minority member on the Assembly Ways & Means Committee. “The agency has even failed to collect billions lost to uncollected fares and tolls. Clearly, the MTA cannot police itself. A forensic audit is long overdue — there are simply too many documented instances of misconduct to ignore. Turning a blind eye to these failures would be a betrayal of every New Yorker who depends on the system and expects accountability.”
Minority Leader Will Barclay (R,C-Pulaski) said the MTA has resorted to congestion pricing — a “wildly unpopular” plan — because of the agency’s failure to collect unpaid tolls during the four-year period. “Hardworking New Yorkers are being penalized for the inept leadership at the MTA which has allowed waste and fraud to become the norm,” he said. “An independent, comprehensive forensic audit is the only way to restore accountability and efficiency to this bloated agency.”
The MTA was statutorily required to create a transformation plan in 2019 to improve operations and services, increase efficiencies and reduce costs. But, in a recent audit conducted by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, it was noted that the MTA had “not demonstrated that it achieved the objectives of improved service levels for the customer, process efficiencies, and cost reductions.”
During the recent Joint Budget Hearing on Transportation, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber painted a dire fiscal situation while seeking more than $33 billion to help fund the Authority’s $68.4 billion Capital Plan. Notably, according to recent reports, the MTA’s payroll has jumped 9% from 2023, with overtime spending reaching record highs. In fact, the reports showed, hundreds of employees have earned more in overtime than in regular pay.
(Photo: Office of NYS Assemblyman Keith Brown) Assemblyman Keith P. Brown (R,C-Northport) stands with his colleagues in the Assembly Minority Conference to promote Ed Ra’s bill in Albany on Monday, March 3.
Keith Brown (R,C-Northport) said Governor Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats have claimed that, without congestion pricing, the MTA will continue to suffer financially. However, Brown and his colleagues have highlighted several reports that speak to the serious inadequacies and patterns of fiscal mismanagement within the MTA system. These inadequacies not only uncollected fares and unpaid tolls, but the falsification of inspection reports as well. He said the MTA has exhibited a “disturbing pattern of fiscal mismanagement and overspending problems” that ‘must be addressed and corrected immediately.”
Daniel Norber (R,C-Great Neck) called the MTA “an institution in desperate need of reevaluation,” adding, “With billions of taxpayer dollars at stake, we cannot continue to allow waste and abuse to go unchecked. The numbers don’t lie … These are more than just minor accounting errors. These are systemic failures that demand accountability. A forensic audit is the first step in ensuring
taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly and commuters receive the service they pay into.”
“New Yorkers should not be responsible for digging the MTA out of the deep financial pit it has dug itself into over the past few years,” said Brown. “Every time we hear about the MTA, it has taken one step forward and three steps back when it comes to making necessary changes and being more fiscally responsible. The MTA must be held accountable.”
In a response to a query from Long Island Life & Politics, John J. McCarthy, MTA’s chief of policy and external relations, said the agency has continually provided reports to the state Legislature and posts 150 sets of data on the Internet; this, he said, resulted in Reinvent Albany, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, to be designated a “gold standard” when it comes to transparency.
“Unfortunately, there is no sign those calling for even more data do any homework before holding press conferences,” McCarthy said. “Then again, facts don’t seem to matter to politicians like Ed Ra, who for years opposed the wildly successful on-time and under-budget LIRR Third Track project — only to show up at a ribbon cutting after the hard work was done.”
