Auditor: Ferry Cash Controls Weak

The handling of fare collections at state ferry terminals has improved, but more needs to be done to prevent undetected theft, state Auditor Brian Sonntag reported.

No missing funds were reported in the year ending June 30, but poor control “creates a situation in which misappropriation of public funds occurs without detection,” according to the state Transportation Department audit released Monday.

Despite improvements, chiefly a computerized central bookkeeping system, “they still don’t have good control over how they handle their cash,” Sonntag said.

It’s the eighth year that state auditors have criticized the ferry system for lack of adequate control over fare collections. For at least five years, ferry officials have said they were trying to improve.

Other ferry system findings, all contained within the state Transportation Department audit, included:

“Inadequate review and control” over vessel and terminal employee timekeeping.

One out of five vendors were not paid within 30 days or within terms of their contracts. The same criticism was raised in the three previous annual audits.

Ferry system director Paul Green said the agency looked better in the latest audit than three years ago, when nine out of 13 findings in the department’s annual review concerned problems in his sector.

“We have made a lot of progress,” Green said. “We’re whittling down these failures.”

Part of the problem, he added, “is that we don’t have a lot in the way of automation. That is something that should have been done a long time ago.”

Green blamed fare collection and bookkeeping glitches on a computerized system that was installed before he took over in 1994 and the subsequent replacement with a new system in which data is entered from ticket windows throughout the system.