[Nfbf-l] Check out Special Transportation Service drivers accused of faking trips ...

[repcodds at aol.com]

In _Special Transportation  Service drivers accused of faking trips - 
Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com_ (http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/1424008.html) 
 

 


_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 MiamiHerald.com_ (mailto:mhaggman at MiamiHerald.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.