CITYRIDE BILLING PROBE GROWS; 2 MORE TAXI COMPANIES FACE ALLEGATIONS OF ABUSING TAXPAYER-FUNDED PROGRAM.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

Two more taxi companies have been accused of overbilling the taxpayer-subsidized Cityride program, prompting a criminal investigation and a call for a special hearing to revamp the $20 million program, officials said Thursday.

Los Angeles Transportation Commission President John Shallman proposed the expanded inquiry after the companies were accused of overbilling the city for trips officials allege were not taken by senior citizens and disabled clients of the Cityride program.

So far, city auditors have demanded that the two companies, and a third identified in April, repay the city for $600,000 in questioned billings.

``It's something we're deeply concerned about,'' Shallman said. ``We want to get to the bottom of it.''

City transit chief James Okazaki said all three companies are challenging the audit findings.

Shallman said a subcommittee of the commission will call the taxi companies in to a special hearing in the near future to explain their conduct and discuss a possible overhaul of the program.

``I'm guessing (the hearing) will result in substantial changes, if not procedural then structural,'' Shallman said. ``It could result in elimination. I don't want to take anything off the table at this point.''

In addition, the LAPD's Bunco-Forgery Division has launched its own probe of the program, Okazaki said.

Under the 4-year-old Cityride program, 90,000 seniors and disabled people are able to buy $60 worth of coupons each calendar quarter for $6 and then redeem the coupons with taxi companies for rides. The companies then turn the coupons in to the city for full value.

The average taxi ride requires $4 in scrip, and the maximum allowed per ride is $8.

After hearing allegations about possible misuses, the city launched an audit of four of the 10 participating taxi companies. In March, the Transportation Department sent a letter to L.A. Checker Cab, alleging it had submitted fraudulent Cityride billings totaling $430,391 and notifying the company that it was withholding 10 percent of future payments to cover the overbilling.

Officials of L.A. Checker Cab could not immediately be reached for comment.

This week, Okazaki confirmed that similar letters have been sent to two other cab companies.

A letter to United Independent Taxi Drivers Inc. said an audit of billings from the period Aug. 1, 1995, to July 31, 1996, found that ``UITD submitted fraudulent or unsubstantiated Cityride coupons for which we already paid UITD in the amount of $112,474.''

Gil Archuletta, an attorney for UITD, said the company is meeting with city officials to go over the issues raised in the audit.

In a similar letter June 4 to Yellow Cab Co., city officials demanded repayment of $67,373 in questioned billings for the year ending Aug. 31, 1996. The letter said 78 percent of the company's audited billings ``appeared to have been fabricated or unsubstantiated.''

The audit found that 65 percent of the passengers' signatures turned in by the company did not match with the names of the scrip purchasers kept by the city.

``During our meeting with 10 of (the) drivers, three acknowledged all the coupons submitted in their names,'' the audit letter said. ``The rest denied most or all of the submitted scrip identified with their (assigned) numbers.''

In other cases, the company could not produce waybills describing the trips for which it billed the program.

Yellow Cab officials did not return calls for comment.

Okazaki said the companies are questioning how city auditors looked at three months of billings and then extrapolated the questionable billings to cover a year's period.

``They don't think they owe anything,'' he said. ``They think it's driver error, putting the wrong numbers down.''

Although Shallman said major changes may be needed, Okazaki said some reforms have already been implemented. The city, not the taxi companies, is auditing billings before they are paid, and Cityride scrip now comes with a bar code, making it easier to confirm proper billings.