Dial-a-Ride: missing money

A new city audit says L.A. was overcharged in a Dial-a-Ride contract in South L.A. The L.A. Department of Transportation is now trying to recover the funds:

The city of Los Angeles was overcharged $700,000 over eight years under a Dial-a-Ride contract with the nonprofit Watts Labor Community Action Committee, according to a city audit released today. Though the contract is no longer in effect, City Controller Laura Chick said the issue "starkly illustrates things that the city still needs to change." Chick’s audit also found inaccuracies in contractor invoices and a lack of clarity in contract requirements with the nonprofit agency, which provided Dial-a-Ride services on the Westside, South Los Angeles and the Harbor area from September 1998 through last September. The city’s Transportation Department, which oversaw the contract, is working with the city attorney’s office to recover the lost funds, according to the agency’s spokesman, Bruce Gilman. (CNS)