Report says N.Y. MTA wasted $722,000 in safety program

The New York MTA, which is about to raise fares, wasted at least $722,000 on a safety program so fatally flawed it should be scrapped, a scathing report concludes, the New York Daily News reports. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority routinely miscalculated how well contractors were doing in preventing accidents and curbing injury-related costs on construction projects, the MTA inspector general's office concluded. As a result, contractors got larger bonus payments than they deserved.

The MTA also fined some
companies whose safety efforts it deemed subpar, but the amounts were too
small, the inspector general’s review of the Contractor Safety Incentive
Program found.

While Inspector General Barry
Kluger commended the MTA for trying to reduce accident and injury-related
costs, his auditors said it’s likely that more than $722,000 was wasted. They
reviewed only a sampling of projects, and in many instances didn’t find enough
documentation to determine if the bonus payments or fines were justified, the
report said.

Accident claims can take
years to settle, long after individual construction projects are completed.

The report said the MTA’s
Risk and Insurance Management department underestimated final accident-related
costs for construction projects. The department could have delayed incentive
payments for up to 18 months after a job was completed, but did its
calculations within six.

The inspector general’s
office reviewed 57 contracts awarded by the MTA’s bus and subway division
between 2000 and 2004 and completed by March of last year. Of those, 19
contractors received incentive payments or fines that were out of whack with
their actual safety performance, the report says.

The MTA agreed to do a top-to-bottom
review of the program.