SEPTA's Spending Habits
PART TWO
Fox 29’s Jeff Cole has been digging into how SEPTA spends public dollars. Yesterday, Jeff revealed pricey holiday parties and gifts for board members which SEPTA defined as justified.
Today, Jeff looked into costly air and ground travel when cheaper options were available.
Expense reports obtained by Fox 29 Investigates show that since February 2008, SEPTA officials purchased 23 AMTRAK tickets to travel back and forth to Washington, DC for official business.
According to the records, 11 of those tickets were for business seats or Acela Express. That method of high-speed travel, in some cases, costs twice the price of regional rail or coach.
For example, on December 2, 2009 a SEPTA GM spent $130 to ride Acela to DC to attend 3 days of meetings. The train left at around 10am.
The AMTRAK schedule shows that a ½ hour earlier, a regional train left for DC. That train ride cost $65. The Acela train was only 10 minutes faster.
The story is the same when that very GM traveled back to Philly. He took an Acela for $162. There was a cheaper option.
During 3 trips to Seoul, South Korea in 2008 and 2009 to discuss SEPTA’s new Silverline rail cars, 3 officials, including that same GM, bought roundtrip tickets that cost more than $6,000 each. The flights included 1st class and business class travel.
Another Seoul trip by a former SEPTA executive cost only $1,396.
Jeff spoke to Richard Maloney, Director of Public Affairs for SEPTA. He said, “Any costs we have associated here we think are fair to the taxpayer.” He told Jeff the plane tickers to Seoul were necessary because officials had to get to Seoul in a hurry. He adds, “Well, it certainly depends on what the issue was at the moment. But if there’s a problem over there and they say they need somebody over there making decisions right now, when you dealing with a $300 million contract, you got to go over there right now and get it done.”
When Jeff asked Mr. Maloney about the train rides yesterday, he said he would get back to us. Today, after Jeff provided the agency with the copies of expense reports, a spokesperson told Fox that senior executives work very tight and busy schedules and they economize on their travel expenses whenever possible.
Check our Part Three tomorrow on Fox 29.