Baltimore Sun

The Maryland Transit Administration has referred a case to criminal investigators at the Attorney General’s Office involving an employee who used keys to bus fare boxes to gain access to the collected money, according to a legislative audit released today.

According to the audit, the MTA was unable to account for $475,000 collected but not deposited from March through June of 2007.

The audit, which criticized the MTA for failing to track employee access to the fare box keys, said the agency referred the matter to the attorney general in January and that an investigation by state and federal officials was under way this summer.

[...]

Among its findings:

—During an 18-month period in 2006 and 2007, the MTA failed to perform maintenance inspections as frequently as required by federal rules on 66 percent of its bus fleet.

—As of January, the MTA had not performed a complete physical inventory of its equipment since July 1998.

—Of its 140 state-owned, non-transit vehicles, 39 were not driven the minimum of 10,000 miles of use on state business in 2007 needed to justify keeping them in the MTA’s fleet.

[...]

In its response to the audit’s findings, the MTA said that, since August 2007, it has been keeping detailed records of who has access to each key. The agency also said it has acquired an automated key management system to track all of its fare-collection keys. It said that system will be installed by Dec. 1.