Met Council committee terminates bus contract with West St. Paul nonprofit

A longtime provider of transit service to the disabled lost its contract with the Metropolitan Council Thursday because of falsified records and inadequately maintained buses.

Members of the regional planning agency's Audit Committee expressed outrage Thursday at the service provided by DARTS, a West St. Paul nonprofit group that serves the elderly and their caregivers in Dakota County.

"This is appalling," said Steven Chavez, a Met Council member who represents Burnsville, Inver Grove Heights, South St. Paul and most of Eagan. "This is a huge breach of trust."

DARTS President and CEO Greg Konat apologized to the committee and said his organization has either remedied or taken tangible steps to fix problems highlighted in the Met Council's audit. "These infractions are an anomaly; it's not our modus operandi," he said.

No one was injured as a result of the issues highlighted in the audit.

The relationship between the Met Council and DARTS spans about three decades.

The Met Council currently leases 52 small buses to the group, which is responsible for maintaining the vehicles. A five-year, $8.2 million contract for 37 Metro Mobility buses serves the disabled community in Dakota County, and a $5.5 million contract covers 15 Transit Link buses, which focuses on customers living in areas of the county lacking transit options.

The audit claims that at least five different staff members at DARTS changed actual arrival times or the scheduled arrival time of a trip after the fact. On July 25, for example, DARTS staff edited the arrival time of 17 trips. An audit of several other days found 11 additional trips where the arrival time was changed when the bus was late, according to GPS tracking equipment employed by the agency.

A DARTS official reportedly told auditors that the changes were intended "to improve the on-time performance" to "make the numbers look better."

The falsification of records resulted in inappropriate billings to customers, who are not required to pay fares when a ride is late by 30 minutes or more, the audit states.

Konat said staff was trained incorrectly on computer software tracking the Metro Mobility bus trips and that the operations manager in charge of the department "is no longer with us." DARTS employees have since been retrained to improve their record-keeping skills, he added.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy for trip data falsification," Konat said.

Three buses were found to have wheelchair lifts that could not be deployed properly, two had exposed wires dangling above the driver's foot pedal, one had a lift door that failed to open unless "excessive force" was used, and another featured latches on the back emergency exit window that were so corroded that it could not be opened.

The report also highlighted deferred maintenance on the buses that ranged from minor issues to "those that could lead to engine failure and other costly repairs … and could threaten the safety of the driver, passengers or the public."

Konat said supervisors have been working with DARTS employees to make sure the buses are maintained and cleaned.

Auditors also reviewed service records for the DARTS maintenance garage in West St. Paul and found that services were provided to a for-profit company and several private individuals (neither of which were named in the audit).

Met Council officials say this violates the terms of a $900,000 Met Council grant that helped pay for the $2 million garage in 2000. Servicing vehicles for local for-profit businesses or DARTS employees is "inconsistent with the conditions of the grant," the report states.

"We think [termination] is appropriate," said Arlene McCarthy, the Met Council's transportation director. "We have to think what's best for our customers and we're obligated to keep our assets in good repair."