Major Deficiencies in RTD Inventory Control Claimed

A new audit has found significant deficiencies in the way that the RTD keeps track of its $20-million inventory of bus parts, which is the focus of a continuing criminal investigation.

The lengthy report, prepared by outside auditors for the RTD’s inspector general and released Thursday, found poorly organized management, inadequate security at some warehouses and repair garages, inaccurate parts counts and lack of proper controls on parts movements around the sprawling district.

“Inventory inaccuracies suggest an overall inventory control problem,” says the report by Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, a major auditing firm.

In addition, the auditors discovered gaps--what some officials have termed a “black hole”--in the RTD’s sophisticated parts-tracking computer system, making it impossible to locate many high-cost items, such as bus transmissions.

Attention began to focus on the inventory control system last year after The Times reported that the district was not accounting for the whereabouts of all of its parts and had “stored” more than $1.2 million in missing or stolen parts in a phantom warehouse that existed only in RTD computers.

The auditors also found broken security doors on storerooms, old parts routinely scrapped that should have been overhauled and only limited controls over how and where gasoline and diesel fuel is consumed.

The report does not directly address the question being investigated by the district attorney’s office: Have large amounts of parts been stolen?

Employees Charged

Deputy Dist. Atty. Herb Lapin, who has charged several former RTD employees with parts theft in the last year, is investigating what happened to more than $1 million in unaccounted parts. Lapin has said that inaccuracies and gaps in the inventory control system at the RTD have made the investigation difficult.

RTD Inspector General Ernesto Fuentes said the new report shows “you are not going to be able to tell whether something has rusted in a corner or was carried away” until the district improves its parts tracking systems. “We don’t know whether (missing) parts are still there; they could just be sitting in a shed,” he said.

General Manager John Dyer said an analysis of 35 recommendations to tighten inventory controls would be presented to the board for action next month.

In other action the RTD board:

- Took a step toward a possible increase in bus fares this spring, perhaps as early as April. The board set a public hearing on fare hikes and bus service cutbacks for Feb. 20. Dyer is recommending that the current 85-cent basic fare be increased to $1, but board members will also consider other options. The fare hike is necessary, Dyer says, because the district faces a $12-million budget deficit this year and a $36-million deficit next year.

- Approved a six-month delay in the opening date for the first leg of the Metro Rail subway. The first 4.4-mile downtown segment, which had been scheduled to open in the summer of 1992, will now open in January, 1993. The delay will add $4.2 million to the cost of the project, which is currently running $93 million under its budget, Dyer said. The delays were blamed on a rerouting near Union Station required by the discovery of underground toxic wastes and land acquisition disputes with the railroads that operate Union Station.