Senator Glazer Calls on BART Management to Cooperate with Inspector General

ORINDA – Senator Steve Glazer, D-Contra Costa, on Friday called on BART’s management and board to embrace the transit district’s first Inspector General’s efforts to look for waste, fraud and abuse in the sprawling agency.

In her report, released this week, Inspector General Harriet Richardson said that BART management is blocking her from doing a “risk assessment” of their various offices, which she said she would use to guide her inquiries.

Richardson says that management accused her of asking questions outside the scope of her authority. But as she correctly notes, the bill creating her office did not limit her purview to certain parts of the organization.

Richardson wrote that her office, which was created by a legislative amendment authored by Senator Glazer and approved by voters in 2018, had restarted its districtwide risk assessment to “identify areas to audit that will provide the most opportunity for improvement and make the best use of our limited resources. However, BART management halted our progress and we are currently working to resolve the issue.”

Senator Glazer urged BART management to cooperate fully with Richardson’s audits. He also called on the BART Board of Directors to take an active role in ensuring the Inspector General can do her job.

“The BART Board of Directors should view the Inspector General as someone who will assist them in remaining accountable to the public and their riders,” Senator Glazer said. “There shouldn’t be any management roadblocks. They should embrace the Inspector General’s important work.”

In her report, Richardson announced her office is launching a new whistleblower hotline and is making it available to all BART employees and the public. Complainants may easily report their fraud, waste, and abuse concerns confidentially and anonymously online at www.bart.gov/OIGhotline or by phone at 510-464-6100. All reports go through a third-party provider to ensure anonymity to callers who prefer to remain anonymous.

“This hotline can be an invaluable tool for BART and its employees as we move toward a more efficient and accountable transit system that is so vital to the Bay Area’s economic and social well-being,” Senator Glazer said.

Read the BART Inspector General’s Activities Report, July-September, 2020: click here.