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.