EDITORIAL : INTEGRITY MATTERS; DISCHARGE OF MTA WHISTLE-BLOWER WARRANTS A FULL INVESTIGATION.CONTINUING disclosures of runaway cost overruns Noun 1. cost overrun - excess of cost over budget; "the cost overrun necessitated an additional allocation of funds in the budget" cost - the total spent for goods or services including money and time and labor , sloppy slop·py adj. slop·pi·er, slop·pi·est 1. Marked by a lack of neatness or order; untidy: a sloppy room. 2. bookkeeping bookkeeping, maintenance of systematic and convenient records of money transactions in order to show the condition of a business enterprise. The essential purpose of bookkeeping is to reveal the amounts and sources of the losses and profits for any given period. practices that have failed to account for millions of dollars, rampant waste and other problems make it clear that the MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. desperately needs some good whistle-blowers. That, however, isn't the way the Metropolitan Transportation Authority works. Consider the disturbing case of Amelia Earnest, a contract overseer for the MTA for nearly 10 years. She got the boot after repeatedly giving material dealing with waste, fraud and underperforming contractors to the MTA's inspector general. Marvin Rudnick, Earnest's attorney, claims his client was laid off because she blew the whistle on politically connected contractors. She turned over documents to federal officials in connection with an investigation into the activities of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. City Councilman Richard Alatorre Richard Alatorre is a politician, and a member of the Democratic Party. Alatorre has served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council. He was the first Latino to serve on the council in 23 years. , a longtime MTA board member, and others. MTA officials, when asked to comment, would say only that Earnest lost her job in November due to cutbacks affecting 52 employees. They declined to elaborate, saying the action involved a personnel matter and thus was confidential. That's not a satisfactory explanation. Inspector General Arthur Sinai has characterized Earnest as ``an honest person who came to the Inspector General's Office with some real concerns as to the integrity of the MTA, and I consider her a whistle-blower whis·tle·blow·er or whis·tle-blow·er or whistle blower n. One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority: "The Pentagon's most famous whistleblower is . . .'' Sinai's observation of Earnest must be taken seriously. Therefore, there must be a top-to-bottom investigation of how the MTA has treated Earnest - and any other whistle-blowers as well. We believe that Julian Burke, the MTA's interim chief executive officer, must take charge of this matter and determine whether anyone did anything improper, or engaged in a cover-up, and report his findings to the MTA board and the public. Burke was brought to the MTA to turn it around. That obviously won't happen if the MTA retains administrators who are more concerned about protecting their own hides than anything else - including integrity. |
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