(Newsday posted the following Associated Press article by Elizabeth LeSure on its website on April 23.)
NEW YORK — An audit of the nation’s largest transit agency found it concealed tens of millions of dollars while arguing for a fare increase, an official familiar with the review said Wednesday.
The audit, to be released Wednesday, found New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority kept two sets of books _ one public and another for internal use, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
State Comptroller Alan Hevesi used subpoenas to obtained the internal books and found that a surplus in 2002 could have been used this year but was instead shifted to 2004, leaving an apparent budget gap of more than $200 million for 2003, the source said.
The MTA had repeatedly said it faced massive deficits while arguing for the fare increase, which was approved in March.
The fare hike raises one-way bus and subway rides by 50 cents to $2. It also includes proportional increases for commuter rail line fares and at bridges and tunnels.
MTA spokesman Tom Kelly did not immediately return calls to the Associated Press seeking comment. Kelly told the New York Times and the Daily News that there had been no attempt to hide funds and that agency’s books were checked by two firms, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte and Touche.
“Both firms … certified that our books for the year ending Dec. 31, 2002, ended in conformity with accounting principals generally accepted in the USA,” Kelly told the Daily News.
Officials involved in the audit acknowledged that if the surplus had been used for 2003, the agency likely would have faced a gap the following year and would have needed to raise fares then, the source said. But, the source said, they also concluded that the agency was deceitful in the way it presented its finances.
Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for city Comptroller William Thompson, said he could not comment on the content of the reviews, but said, “The findings in our audit are disturbing.”