Shoddy Vetting Lets Convicts Get Jobs With MTA: Audit

NEW YORK CITY — Convicted rapists and drug dealers may be slipping through background checks and landing jobs as MTA bus drivers and station agents, according to a new audit.

City officials responded that the screening process is rigorous and the report is flawed.

The audit of New York City Transit's hiring practices shows two agencies responsible for vetting new hires aren't conducting thorough background checks and missing criminal records and lies about work history, MTA Inspector General Carolyn Pokorny said Wednesday.

“The riders, taxpayers, and MTA workforce deserve an effective hiring process that ensures new employees are qualified,” Pokorny said in a statement. “Such diligence could mitigate the costly and risky process of hiring, training, and then eventually firing employees who were never eligible to be hired in the first place.”

The report focuses on MTA hiring checks conducted by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and Transit's Background Investigations Unit, which divvy up worker applications between them, according to the audit.

Lack of communication between the two offices means hoards of applications are never vetted by DCAS and unqualified and potentially dangerous candidates wind up with MTA jobs, the Inspector General Office argued.

As proof, the MTA Inspector General's report notes Transit investigators fired 11 out of about 2,600 bus drivers —trained between January 2015 and August 2017 — after background checks found criminal histories that included rape, drug dealing and robbery convictions.

But during the same period, the DCAS did not fire anyone even though the MTA Inspector General said it was responsible for vetting nearly 40 percent of those new bus drivers.

"It is unlikely that the group of Bus Operators under DCAS’ purview differs significantly from the BIU group," the report states. "This disparity in termination rates raises the question of whether DCAS’ standards for termination are sufficiently aligned with NYC Transit’s own policy."

But DCAS spokesperson Nick Benson disputed the findings and called the report "significantly flawed."

"DCAS does not conduct background checks for the vast majority of NYCT employees," Benson said. "Including in some of the examples erroneously cited in this report."

DCAS pointed blame at Transit's investigators whom Benson said regularly take months to provide documentation his agency needs to conduct background checks.

MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan, when asked to comment, described the agency's screening process as "rigorous."

"In the period of time covered, there has been no reported issue attributed to an employee not being properly screened," said Donovan. "On those occasions where background checks have identified serious problems, the individual, and/or the hiring process, has been immediately terminated."

The MTA Inspector General office's report also raises concerns about applicants lying their way into jobs by overstating their experience, according to the audit.

In one case, a prospective car inspector was hired after stating he had four years of professional experience, according to the audit. But basic subtraction showed if this were true, it meant he started working full-time when he was 13 years old.

According to the audit, unnamed DCAS officials told the Inspector General's office they did not investigate 78.5 percent of transit workers hired between June 2017 and June 2018.

"Any [of those workers] could have falsified their educational background or professional experience with little or no chance of detection," the report reads. "These deficiencies unfairly put truthful job applicants at a disadvantage and NYC Transit’s customers, operations, and property at risk."

According to the report, NYC Transit plans to increase its number of background checks after the MTA awards a new all-agency contract for background investigation services in early 2020.

"The goal will be to double the number of verifications in the covered titles from 1-in-30 hires to 1-in-15," the agency stated.

“[The] new contract should enable the BIU to reallocate some of its resources towards performing additional verifications for titles covered in the Report."