State Senator Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, has called for a comprehensive audit of the Regional Transportation District, with special focus on general manager Cal Marsella’s pay and benefits, RTD’s privatization of transit services and the planned FasTracks tax increase.
FasTracks calls for construction of six new trains, yet the project needs another $2.2 billion to complete it on time.
The planned North Metro commuter train to Tochtrop’s community is in danger of being truncated if the funding gap cannot be closed. RTD’s board will soon decide whether to ask voters for another 0.4 percent sales tax increase to make up the shortfall.
Tochtrop has written a letter asking State Auditor Sally Symanski to look into RTD’s “perceived fiscal irresponsibility relative to the General Manager’s benefit and bonus packages.”
RTD spokesman Scott Reed said the agency “is already subject to dozens of audits and financial reviews.”
“In addition to existing statutory requirements for financial and performance audits, RTD has direct oversight by the state Legislature, our elected Board of Directors, federal management oversight auditors from the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Federal Transit Administration,” Reed said. “The proposed audits would be redundant, likely costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
For weeks, Tochtrop has raised concerns about Marsella’s pay and benefits. The RTD chief executive makes about $300,000 in base salary and won an additional performance bonus of about $27,000 this year. He also has a lucrative pension package.
On April 28 Marsella said he will leave the top spot at RTD on July 31 to take an executive position with MV Transportation, a private transit provider that already operates about half of RTD’s access-a-Ride bus service for the disabled.
“He’s walking away with an extremely good golden parachute. I want to make sure it will not happen again,” Tochtrop said, adding that she will explore legislation next year that would rein in pay and benefit packages for top officials in the public sector.
MV Transportation, based in Fairfield, Calif., said Marsella will be the company’s Colorado-based chief development officer and chief executive of a new company unit, MV Rail, that will operate rail lines for public entities on a contract basis.
RTD’s rules prohibit Marsella from doing any MV work with RTD for a year after he leaves the transit agency.
That prohibition can easily be skirted, Tochtrop said.
Marsella is close to RTD staffers who will decide what private companies get FasTracks rail contracts, Tochtrop said. “He was their boss.”
“He has the inside track,” she added. “There is so much collusion there.”
Marsella was out of town this afternoon, and authorized Reed to speak on his behalf.
RTD hopes a public-private partnership will design, build, operate and maintain at least two FasTracks commuter trains, including the line to Denver International Airport. RTD expects the private partnership will operate other FasTracks commuter-rail lines as well.
Tochtrop wants the auditor to analyze RTD’s existing privatized bus operations, to determine if they “are done at fair market value and, if not, the cost of any subsidies to taxpayers.”
RTD currently contracts out more than 50 percent of its bus and van service to private companies.
Tochtrop said she hopes the legislature’s audit committee, on which she sits, will take up her request at its next meeting in early June.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
