Accountability systems

1. Ultimately, DC's Chief Financial Officer will have to resign, because that office (not the person) is ultimately responsible for ensuring internal/financial controls. They didn't. The CFO was quoted in the paper saying that when he ran the Tax Office, every refund check over $10,000 was reviewed and signed by him. Rather than being a personalized procedure, why wasn't a system of regularized procedures created?

When I worked for a nonprofit almost 20 years ago, we had a large credit card based transaction system, and the bookkeeper figured out she could do chargebacks with she (or her husband) as payee. This was discovered in a similar way to the recent fraud in DC, by a questioning bank employee.

Sure our organization got audited annually, but by an accountant who mostly did nonprofit work, and the other nonprofits didn't have big credit card transaction operations. So he never built in tests for things like the amount of chargebacks. In that situation of mostly $25 credit card transactions, any chargeback greater than $150 should have been reviewed. (One particular fraudulent transaction by the bookkeeper was 65 times greater than this number. But overall, the amount of chargebacks wasn't that high, relative to the total revenue from the credit card-based revenue stream.) Similarly, any large property tax refund should be reviewed automatically.

And you would think that if these high number refunds totaled as much as 20% of the yearly refund stream according to the article in Sunday's Post, "Fast-Paced D.C. Tax Scam Probe Aimed 'to Stop the Hemorrhaging'," then it should have been apparent much earlier.

Budget to actual reports, including numbers from previous years are a great way to build accountability into _systems_. Even if ultimately, all systems are based in part on trust.

2. In the Sunday Post, two letter writers, in "A Few Fare Questions For Metro," pose some questions. I don't agree that Congressional investigation is the answer. Tom Davis has hardly shown himself to be reasonably able on transit questions, even if he has put forth legislation to provide additional federal funding. But their point about accountability and connectedness is worth thinking about.

As long as the WMATA board is somewhat insulated from the citizenry, because board members are appointed by the jurisdictions, with Maryland's appointments made by the Governor, yet another level beyond the purview of MontCo and PG, especially because for the most part people appointed to these kinds of boards don't use transit (this isn't NYC), there will be a disconnect between transit users and the transit system.

Not only are the board members, maybe other than those from Arlington County, not likely to use transit in the DC region, they might not even be inclined to ride transit when they travel to other places, further limiting their understanding and awareness.

In the past I suggested that maybe the WMATA board should be elected. OTOH, locally elected representatives may not be connected to the funding streams from government, which would be a different and undesired disconnect as well.

Still, there may need to be some directly elected representation on the WMATA board, to increase connectedness to the citizenry, if not accountability. In other areas, transit taxes are voted on by the electorate (San Francisco Bay, etc.). Again, voting on issues like this would increase awareness and connectedness.

3. Another letter to the editor on Sunday, "We Need the Road, but Why the Tolls?," reminds me of Jane Jacobs' great point about roads. She said that when people ask the question 'why aren't there enough roads to accommodate all the cars?' that the real question is 'why are there so many cars?'

A minimum of 15-25% of all traffic is discretionary. I mean that when road systems are changed or freeways eliminated, that much traffic just disappears.

But mispricing or lack of pricing signals, such as free parking, further increases traffic by encouraging people to make decisions that are costly overall. Maybe this is another 15%-30% of all driving. The more driving, the more roads required, and roads cost money. Plus road capacity is constrained.

Ms. Middendorf, the letter author, writes:

I travel to many other U.S. cities and see the lovely expressways and parkways zipping traffic on its merry way, and I wonder why it is not possible to zip along in the Washington area. Does anyone have any idea why? It is so embarrassing to live in an area that has traffic jams to compare with Los Angeles.

THE REALITY IS THAT FOR THE MOST PART, THIS IS A SUBURBAN PROBLEM. The DC region doesn't have near the population of the Los Angeles region, so we don't need 16 lane freeways. But as long as sprawl is the prevailing land use paradigm, and an automobile, most often with a single driver, is the preferred mobility method, you can't build enough road capacity.

I am amazed all the time at how during so many hours of the day that there is relatively little traffic on DC streets. Sure there are chokepoints and such during the day, especially for through traffic to and from Virginia and Maryland, and for those commuting into the city and out at the end of the day.

A freeway can move about 2,000 vehicles per lane mile per hour. Big arterials can maybe move 1,200-1,300 vehicles per lane mile per hour. A city street maybe 800, but often much less. But the grid provides lots of mobility options and additional capacity for the same amount of square miles.

As long as (mostly suburban) households make up to 15 separate trips per day, by car, there is no solution. Compact development is one. Better pricing of scarce resources is another. Therefore, no free parking, and maybe a form of tolling for certain kinds of road uses.

The headline "We Need the Road, but Why the Tolls?," perfectly captures the lack of any sense of responsiblity for the problem.

Remember that going forward, one of DC's competitive advantages is efficient non-automobile dependent mobility. So all transportation and land use actions in DC need to recognize this, and be congruent with maintaining and strengthening this level of mobility.