Under the current inventory system, management has no way of determining whether MetroCards were skimmed or stolen before reaching the public. For example, the audit found that Transit allows token booth clerks to report MetroCards as defective without returning them. This practice could make it easy for employees to claim usable cards as defective and sell or use them. My auditors found disturbing shortages and overages of MetroCards that could cost taxpayers thousands of dollars. There's an opportunity to learn from the small discrepancies and protect the Metrocard program from bigger problems.
Transit can limit the potential for shams and theft by moving to control inventory weaknesses now.
In reviewing records for 1994 to 1997, McCall's auditors found discrepancies between sales made by token booth clerks and inventory records for all MetroCards, including pre-valued cards. In another case, auditors found 900 pre-valued cards that were recorded in one stage of Transit's inventory system, but were missing from the next. McCall's auditors challenged this scenario, pointing out that there was no way of knowing whether the cards found were the ones missing because the inventory is not recorded by batch or serial number. In a related matter, Comptroller McCall released a follow-up report on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Fare Evasion Program.