Miami transit OT draining county budget

Jack Dolan, Larry Lebowitz and Scott Hiaasen of The Miami Herald analyzed local payroll data to find that “transit overtime pay — which is 1.5 times as high as regular hourly rates and cost taxpayers more than $129 million over the last five years — is a long-standing drain on county funds that has persisted despite decades of promises from county officials to bring it under control.” The paper found dozens of county bus and train operators who double their pay via overtime work.

Brad Branan of the Tucson Citizen used court records to show that Arizona school bus drivers with criminal records or multiple moving violations are escaping state regulatory enforcement and putting children and other motorists at risk. The investigation found that drivers with criminal records or multiple traffic violations are among the most accident prone at Tucson-area school districts. "A Vail Unified School District driver — one of two school bus drivers to transport students while under the influence of drugs or alcohol last school year — was state certified despite numerous traffic violations and a license suspension." The investigation found a number of loopholes in the state system for licensing and certifying school bus drivers including that a school bus driver has to commit two DUIs or other major traffic offenses in a personal vehicle to automatically lose his bus license and that the Arizona Department of Public Safety doesn't check for criminal backgrounds after a driver is certified.

Phil Pitchford, Ben Goad, David Danelski, Mark Kawar and projects editor Cathy Armstrong of The (Riverside, Calif.) Press-Enterprise examine the safety issues surrounding trains carrying hazardous cargo as they travel through populated areas. "Every day, trains hauling tons of hazardous chemicals roll past Inland homes, schools, hospitals and businesses." The newspaper says residents are "largely unprepared for a large-scale chemical spill along a rail line" while chances of such an incident are increasing. "More than 1.5 million Inland residents live close enough to railroad tracks to be at risk from a serious spill, according to a recent analysis using geographic information systems technology from Redlands-based ESRI." (Editor's Note: IRE and NICAR offer the Hazardous Materials Incident Report Subsystem, maintained by the Department of Transportation. It includes incident reports of unintentional releases of hazardous materials for all modes of transportation — air, highway, railway, and water.)

Bill Burke and David Gulliver of The Virginian-Pilot used local court data to show that " from 2000 to 2004 in Hampton Roads, 42,606 people were convicted of driving on a suspended or revoked license, according to an analysis of court records." More than 4,600 people were found guilty three or more times, and some had more than 10 convictions. Though more than a dozen states have recognized the problem in recent years and taken actions to remove violators from the road, Virginia has no such initiatives, instead eliminating judges' most powerful weapon for punishing chronic suspended-driving offenders — the state

Matthew Benson of the Fort Collins Coloradoan analyzed a decade of accident data to show the ineffectiveness of the camera system at reducing red-light running and preventing collisions. The number of accidents and accident rates, at a certain intersection in Fort Collins, Colo., have steadily increased in the years since the city installed a system in 1997. "The investigation found that the rate of accidents per 1 million vehicles entering the intersection climbed from 1.31 in 1994 to 2.4 last year. " The intersection remains the city's second most dangerous in terms of the accident rate.

Bill Burke, with contributions from David Gulliver, of The Virginian-Pilot report that with swelling illegal migrant populations in Va., rogue vehicles being driven by unlicensed drivers have been responsible for a string of deadly accidents . "Since 2002, more than 90 people have been injured and 18 killed on the Eastern Shore in accidents involving Hispanic workers driving rogue vehicles. "Tennessee's lax registration regulations enable several migrants to get Tennessee tags because Tennessee does not require identification or proof of insurance when a vehicle is titled and plates are issued, as long as the motorist pays cash.

Steve Neavling of The Bay City Times reviewed records to show that the Bay Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spent about $200,000 since 1999 on airfare, lodging, rental cars, valet parking, out-of-town meals and other travel expenses. These expenses came at a time when the agency was forced to reduce the schedules of bus routes and offered employees an early-retirement buyout to trim a $320,000 deficit. "The review of Bay Metro records is part of a Times ongoing examination of travel and meal expenses incurred by public agencies in Bay County. The first story revealed that the county's Road Commission spent more than $75,000 since 2001 on meals and travel expenses. "

Michael R. Shea of The Beaufort (S.C.) Gazette delved into the South Carolina State Ports Authority, the state agency that manages "the fourth-largest waterborne shipping network in the country through marine terminals in Charleston, Georgetown and Port Royal, South Carolina." The stories show that political contributions, political appointments and no-bid contracts blur the line between state agency and a private business. It also discusses its battle for records from the agency. The 18-story project includes more than a dozen of the public records, received through FOIAs, that were used in the reporting.

James Drew and Mike Wilkinson of The (Toledo) Blade examine the relationships between Ohio politicians and the businesses that do work for the state's Department of Transportation. "Over the last decade, a Blade investigation shows, those firms have contributed more than $1 million to politicians, political parties, and political action committees. In the last five years, those same firms have received more than $400 million in ODOT contracts." The second part of the three-part series finds that Democratic Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman, a critic of the state's so-called "pay-to-play system," has gotten about 13 percent of his campaign cash from "the same engineers and consultants that have pumped money for years predominately into GOP campaigns in the state."

Bente Birkland and Catherine Rentz Pernot of the Columbia Missourian used data from the U.S. Coast Guard to determine that "between 2000 and 2004, Missouri led the nation in alcohol-related boating accidents." Among other findings: "The Lake of the Ozarks topped the list for boating accidents in Missouri, and it is the most dangerous body of water to drink and boat. Between 2000 and 2004, the lake had more alcohol-related accidents than anywhere else in the nation, including the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico ..." (Note: The Coast Guard's boating accident data and boat registration data is available to journalists from the IRE and NICAR Database Library.)