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MTA Inspector General, Matthew Sansverie

January 27, 2006 @ 12:00 am EST


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This morning we had a very interesting presentation from Matthew Sansverie. Matthew is the Inspector General of the MTA.


The term “Inspector General” explained Sansverie came from Napoleon Bonepart. When Napoleon asked his generals to give a report on conditions and progress they tended to give rosy reports. However Napoleon needed the truth, so he assigned a general without a command of his own, to report on the other generals and their commands. The term Inspector General was coined.

Mr. Sansverie explained his function as an overseer and then gave a number of specific examples. Once while having investigators on the yard premises of Metro North his investigators noticed that the employees were apparently leaving the premises approximately one hour after they arrived. The employees were punching in and then leaving for home.

 

Contractors were reporting that they were paying the prevailing wages and computing the wage bills they submitted an a larger workforce than they actually used, pocketing the difference. Other contractors were getting jobs while having hundreds of thousands of state tax bills outstanding. Sansverie stopped that practice by coordinating with the tax department and paying tax money owed to the state from the contractors earnings.

 

Of course, some of these offenses were criminal, and they were referred to prosecutors. I told Matthew he reminded of prosecutor Fitzgerald who is prosecuting Libby, and I asked what motivated him. He said “doing the right thing.” I believe him, it motivates me.

 

As usual the Q&A was lively and we did not get to all of the questions, but Matthew was gracious and answered questions from many people after we officially ended the meeting.