WMATA Fires Track Supervisor For Overtime Abuse

WMATA announced Friday that they have fired a track department supervisor for "abuse of overtime," and that others are under administrative review.

Metro General Manager and CEO Paul J. Wiedefeld said in a statement that the revelations were "disturbing and disappointing," and that the person in question was dismissed immediately.

"As stewards of the public’s trust, all of us at Metro must hold ourselves to a standard of conduct that is above suspicion and reproach," Wiedefeld said. "We have a code of ethics that prohibits abuse of employment here for private gain."

Metro's Office of Inspector General is in the midst of an investigation into overtime fraud, which prompted the administrative review that led to the firing.

"While both the Inspector General’s investigation and WMATA administrative reviews are ongoing, one supervisor was found to have violated WMATA policies and accessed significant overtime earnings, including during times when he was not working," the statement adds. "The Inspector General’s office conducted an analysis of overall overtime earnings and found that certain track managers earned more than double their base salary in overtime, a pattern that was recurring over several years, prior to the SafeTrack initiative."

Image via WMATA