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

[Kirk]

Hmm! I hope these gentlemen don't represent too many other drivers that work 
our Para Transit services as drivers  or supervisor's around Florida! Is MV 
contracting their services in the Dade County area Dwight? This could really 
cause them some headache if they are I would imagine for more than the Miami 
area, You know? Thanks for forwarding this to all of us however for our 
awareness of this type of crime and criminals! KH
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <repcodds at aol.com>
To: <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>; <nfbf-leaders at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 7:10 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbf-l] Check out Special Transportation Service 
driversaccused of faking trips ...




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.




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