[fcb-l] Subject: Check out Special TransportationService drivers

Fri Jan 15 18:34:52 GMT 2010

What amazes me is if this can happen, how many trips that shouldn't be billed as TD trips are? especially if the CTC does medicade Para transit and TD trips.

Robert

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: bill freeman 
  To: fcb-l at acb.org ; jesusgar at bellsouth.net 
  Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 1:01 PM
  Subject: Re: [fcb-l] Subject: Check out Special TransportationService drivers

  Jesus:

            Miami/Dade is not the place that I grew up in over seventy years ago but even I couldn't really swallow those figures.  I was awaiting your clarification and the real facts.  Thank you!  As you know, figures don't lie but liars will figure.  

  Bill

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  From: fcb-l-bounces at acb.org [mailto:fcb-l-bounces at acb.org] On Behalf Of Jesus Garcia
  Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 12:50 PM
  To: fcb-l at acb.org
  Subject: Re: [fcb-l] Subject: Check out Special TransportationService drivers

  Afternoon to all just a brief comment as a long time rider of the system here in Miami Dade I can assure you that some of these numbers are highly suspect. No question that fraud took place, however 30 percent of trips in a three week period is complete nonsense. As with many programs around the country the transit agency is hoping to use this problem much of which they created and permitted to drastically slash the service. So, as usual as with the pyramid scam during the housing bubble the people who pay the price are the ones who can least afford to pay it.

  From: fcb-l-bounces at acb.org [mailto:fcb-l-bounces at acb.org] On Behalf Of Kirk
  Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 22:51
  To: fcb-l at acb.org
  Subject: Re: [fcb-l] Subject: Check out Special Transportation Service drivers

  It sure does Pat! I forwarded dthis to the CEO of Lynx here and a couple of my rfriends in Public office  here as well letting them know that we just might need to monitor our Para Transit books a bit closer from m now on! Your friend, Kirk

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Patricia A. Lipovsky 

    To: fcb-l at acb.org 

    Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:50 PM

    Subject: [fcb-l] Subject: Check out Special Transportation Service drivers

    Wow, This makes you wonder if there is fraudulent activity
    going  on in other areas of Florida. 

    accused of faking trips ...

    In Special <
    http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/1424008.html>
    Transportation Service drivers accused of faking trips - Miami-Dade -
    MiamiHerald.com 

    Miami-Dade  <
    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/index.html>
    <http://www.miamiherald.com/> 

    SPECIAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICE

    Special Transportation Service drivers accused of faking trips

    More than a dozen Special Transportation Service workers were arrested on
    charges of billing taxpayers for phantom trips for the elderly and disabled.

    BY DAVID OVALLE AND MATTHEW HAGGMAN

    mhaggman at MiamiHeral
     <mailto:mhaggman at MiamiHerald.com
    > d.com

    In one case, taxpayers were charged for nearly 100 transit trips ferrying a
    mentally disabled person who hadn't used the service. In another, the public
    was billed for trips by a driver who had died.

    In all, authorities said Wednesday, a company employed by Miami-Dade
    County's transit agency to transport the elderly and disabled overbilled
    taxpayers at least $212,000 for phantom trips.

    Miami-Dade Police arrested 12 drivers and a supervisor Wednesday at the
    county's Special Transportation Service, a division of Miami-Dade Transit.
    The charge: engaging in an organized scheme to defraud. Sixteen arrest
    warrants have been issued in all, court records show. 

    The arrests represent a new chapter in a broader history of waste and
    mismanagement that has punctuated Miami-Dade County's stewardship of the
    transit system that included a 2002 half-penny sales tax that promised far
    more than it delivered.

    A Miami-Dade Transit audit found that over a three-week period in May 2007,
    30 percent of rides documented never took place -- equaling a loss of
    $857,000. Auditors projected losses ``expected to exceed $10 million'' the
    past five years, the warrant said.

    Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez declined comment through spokeswoman
    Victoria Mallette. ``This is an ongoing investigation that we are taking
    very seriously,'' Mallette added in an e-mail.

    The round of arrests comes as the lucrative contract to operate Miami-Dade
    Transit's service for elderly and disabled riders who can't use normal
    public transit is set to expire in March.

    The county's Special Transportation Service, created in 1976, is run by
    Miami-based Advance Transportation Solutions and four subcontractors. ATS, a
    privately-held company, has had the contract since 2001; its latest deal,
    signed with the county in 2004, is worth $219 million.

    Each day, ATS and its subcontractors make more than 6,000 trips ferrying
    disabled and elderly residents in buses and sedans across the county, even
    into the Florida Keys. Last year, Miami-Dade Transit spent $43 million
    operating the Special Transporation Service.

    ATS, in a press release, said it discovered the bogus trips and immediately
    hired retired police detectives to launch an internal investigation. The
    findings were turned over to Miami-Dade police, and the company reimbursed
    the county for the bogus trips.

    ``The evidence provided by ATS resulted in an extensive police investigation
    culminating in today's arrests,'' the company's statement said.

    Yet, it remains unclear if ATS -- which has hired a host of lobbyists --
    will be able to retain the contract.

    In a memo to commissioners Wednesday, County Manager George Burgess wrote
    that, after initially planning to extend the ATS contract that expires in
    March, he's changed his mind while county officials review proposals to run
    the transit division under a new five-year contract.

    ``The seriousness of the charges connected to this ongoing investigation and
    today's arrests and the unanswered questions which they pose with respect to
    the performance of the existing vendor, has affected my ability to recommend
    to the Board any extension of the existing contract,'' Burgess wrote.

    Instead, Burgess said he plans to negotiate with a new vendor, who would run
    the transit operation for two years.

    Citing escalating costs, some commissioners have proposed curtailing pricey
    services such as transporting riders into Monroe County. Taking the transit
    division in-house, rather than outsourced to a private contractor, has also
    been contemplated.

    ``We have to make some changes,'' said Commissioner Carlos Gimenez.

    In the STS computer system, each rider was assigned a specific number used
    to schedule trips. According to a warrant filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court,
    the ID numbers were used to book the phantom trips, which were then billed
    to the county.

    Supervisor Tesla Narvaez-Waidner, who had complete access to the booking
    system, was ``integral in this fraudulent scheme,'' the warrant said. She,
    like the others arrested, was charged with an organized scheme to defraud.

    One driver, Uriel Granjales, booked 112 trips in the name of one rider that
    never happened, police said. Granjales was booked into a Miami-Dade jail
    Wednesday.

    On Wednesday morning, eight of the drivers were asked to attend a county
    training meeting in the Miami Dade Transit auditorium.

    ``We would like your participation in evaluating additional changes,'' wrote
    Hugh Chen, Miami-Dade Transit deputy director of operations.

    The drivers shuffled into the auditorium for the purported training session
    -- and were arrested. 

    __._,_.___

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