Former environmental regulators were able to enjoy their taxpayer-funded metro cards for months after they left the federal government, according to investigators.
“Thirty-five percent of EPA employees who separated from the agency in CY 2014 continued to receive transit subsidy benefits for at least a month after leaving the agency,” according to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general’s office.
“In fact, separated employees continued to receive the transit subsidy benefit from 1 to 6 months after separation,” the IG reported. “Of the 149 separated employees who continued to receive funding on their transit cards, 46 (31 percent) of those employees used their EPA-paid transit cards after separation.”
In total, former EPA employees at the agency’s Washington, D.C. headquarters charged $1,379 to their agency transit cards, but EPA’s lax oversight put as much as $14,715 in subsidies at risk from being misused by former employees.
“OARM did not fully implement internal controls for transit subsidy participants to be removed from the program upon separation,” the IG warned. “One-third of the separated employees continued to receive a subsidy a month after separation.”
“Almost one-third of those separated employees continued to use their EPA subsidized transit card after separation,” the IG reported. “This situation indicates an ongoing risk. Improved transit subsidy oversight should save the EPA money.”
The IG’s office released a thorough report on how EPA is protecting against waste, fraud and abuse in its transit subsidy program, which gives employees a $130 a month to take public transit to work. Employees can also get $20 a month for biking to work.
EPA spent nearly $10 million on transit subsidies in 2014 as part of the government’s effort to “improve air quality” by getting federal employees to drive less. The IG, however, found EPA’s subsidy program has not been consistently applied across the agency, resulting in wasted tax dollars.
Metro card misuse at EPA headquarters is only a fraction of the waste found by the IG. The watchdog also reported EPA’s Seattle office overpaid for transit subsidies by $135,701.
How did EPA end up spending $135,000 more than employees actually used? EPA’s Region 10 office decided to purchase discounted transit passes for all its employees, even if they did not use public transit.
“Region 10 paid $135,701 in excess of actual full fare transit costs for CYs 2014 and 2015,” the IG reported. “If the region’s transit team had reviewed the actual usage in prior years, it would not have continued entering into this contract agreement year after year.”
“In addition, the transit authority in Seattle provides actual ridership reports on its website,” the IG reported. “If Region 10 had reviewed the reports each year, it would have discovered that actual ridership was significantly less than the contracted amount.”
“Region 10 staff stated that they did not understand how to request or download the available reports. As a result, more economical cost alternatives were not considered, and Region 10 continued to purchase transit passes for all employees at a higher cost overall, according to the IG.
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