Subject: [NEXTEL-1] MARTA- Can't Find Nextel Contract

From: "marcel_rf1" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 02:45:23 -0000

MARTA- Can't Find Nextel Contract 
MARTA audit cites phone bill chaos

By HENRY UNGER

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
MARTA rang up $25,736 in interest charges last
year because it couldn't pay its telephone bills on
time, just one sign of a need for tougher
management controls, according to the authority's auditors.

BellSouth imposed the interest charges on
MARTA's unpaid balance because the transit
authority could not get a handle on 50 separate bills for telephone 
service, auditors said in a report released last week.
MARTA's technology managers found it "impossible" to manage all the 
bills, many of which were addressed to people no longer employed by 
MARTA, Shyam Dunna, assistant general manager for information 
technology (IT), said in the audit.

Telephone bills were forwarded sporadically to the IT department for 
payment, often months after they had been received, the audit report 
said. "IT was not previously aware of these accounts or of the fact 
that many of the bills were going unpaid" until last September, the 
report said.

Auditors found the unpaid bills as they studied three years of MARTA's 
spending on telephone and cellphone service. They said their findings 
show MARTA needs stronger oversight of telecommunications services and 
more attention to following its own purchasing procedures.
MARTA officials said they already have addressed the audit findings.

The authority's audit department also found:
o MARTA awarded four major telephone contracts worth about $1.8 
million a year without consulting its own contract officers. That 
violated MARTA's policies and may have resulted in uncompetitive rates 
because proper procedures were not followed.

o MARTA cannot find the four telephone contracts that were awarded 
improperly: with BellSouth for local service, AT&T for long-distance 
service and Cingular Wireless and Nextel Communications for cellular 
service. Copies of the contracts are necessary to make sure proper 
charges are being billed.

In response, officials said, MARTA is in the process of putting its 
need for cellular services up for bids. The authority also plans to 
renegotiate or rebid the contracts now held by BellSouth and AT&T.
o An "unauthorized individual" entered MARTA into three separate 
contracts with Sprint and MCI with an outstanding balance of about 
$250,000. Sprint has sued MARTA to collect $48,000 in data collection 
services, auditors said. Sprint PCS has sent collection notices 
covering more than $43,000, and MCI WorldCom has demanded payment of 
more than $159,000.

The employee who signed the three contracts is no longer with MARTA, 
auditors said, and other IT personnel knew nothing about them.
The MARTA board must approve contracts of $100,000 or more, and only 
designated MARTA executives may sign off on contracts involving 
smaller amounts.

Auditors said "frequent management turnover" may have been a factor in 
the unauthorized contracts. MARTA's information technology operations 
have had seven chiefs in seven years.

MARTA's chief lawyer issued a memo last month warning top managers 
that employees guilty of purchasing violations "may be required to 
assume personal liability or [face] other disciplinary actions up to 
and including termination."

MARTA General Manager Nathaniel Ford has been taking action to remedy 
the problems cited in the audit, spokeswoman Steen Miles said.
"The audit was very enlightening," Miles said. "What was really 
encouraging was that there was no malfeasance or anything illegal. 
Essentially, there were few surprises and nothing about which we've 
not already begun corrective action."

To get a handle on the unpaid BellSouth bills, auditors said, MARTA 
has consolidated the 50 separate accounts into one. They said that 
should improve MARTA's timeliness in paying its phone bills.
MARTA has paid BellSouth $12,051 of the interest charges and is 
negotiating over the remaining $13,685, Miles said.
To prevent the creation of new telephone accounts, auditors said, 
MARTA is requiring vendors providing new services to go through two 
designated officials.

And MARTA created a new position to monitor the use of cellphones and 
pagers and make sure proper procedures are followed. Miles said that 
person started work last week. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 
reported in January that Laura Lawson rang up more than $10,000 in 
cellphone charges after stepping down as chairwoman of the 18-member 
MARTA board. MARTA issues the phones to board chairmen for business 
purposes, but Lawson kept the phone after going back to being a 
regular board member in 2000. Few of the phone numbers on the bills 
were MARTA numbers, and several appeared to be to relatives and 
businesses.

In April, the MARTA board approved a new policy requiring members 
using authority equipment for personal use to reimburse the cost 
within 30 days.

The audit findings come just weeks after the disclosure that the 
department spent millions of dollars on computer hardware that sits 
unused in storage. Much of the equipment probably will be sold as 
surplus, MARTA officials have said.

MARTA's former IT director had pushed last year for a broader audit 
that would examine all IT spending over five years.
The inquiry later was scaled back to cover telecom spending for a 
period of three years.

Miles said Friday that MARTA's top managers "do not believe it would 
serve any useful purpose to do a further audit."
"The discrepancies that we have found have been administrative and 
corrective action has been taken," she said. "To go back five years or 
more to see what might have been done administratively would simply be 
an exercise and only serve to second-guess administrative decisions 
that were made with the best information on hand at that time."

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/spotlight/2003/072103.html

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