Toll Road Revolt
It’s time for a toll road revolt in Harris County. The auditor has just finished a review that exposed the tricks of the toll road. A toll road staffing contract wasted literally millions of your tax money.
The Toll Busters
An audit confirms you’ve been getting screwed by the toll road. Now the question is why Harris County commissioners haven’t already stopped the tricks of the toll road.
The next time you get your toll road bill, remember—you heard it here first—you’re being played.
The tricks of the toll road are exposed. They discuss the topic on the Fox 26 show What’s Your Point.
“It’s crazy, but it’s a slush fund. And of course, as long as they get away with it, I’m sure that especially the Democrats on Commissioners Court want to continue to suck that money down,” said Gary Polland.
The silence from the Democrats on Commissioners court is especially deafening. $290 million in excess toll road money is diverted to pay for their pet projects instead of paying the roads down, making them free.
State lawmakers aren’t happy.
“If a toll road authority is going to take their excess money and basically waste that, we should be giving it back to the cities and the other taxing units to actually do something about mobility,” Paul Bettencourt said in an interview.
The move to crack down on the toll roads largesse comes in the wake of our investigation of temporary staffing contracts.
“Those questions, I think, are allowing the county to take a look at how we do those and be sure that going forward, we cross all our T’s and dot all our I’s,” said Tom Ramsey.
Because of our investigation, Commissioner Tom Ramsey asked for an audit.
That audit, it’s now public. It confirms the wasteful staffing record we expose after the toll road got its own separate staffing contracts for temporary workers and fees higher than we paid temporary workers in other parts of county government.
Look at this from the audit. This customer service rep was being paid $19 an hour by a staffing company.
That staffing company added their markup—34% to $25.46 an hour. That’s a fairly high return, but not out of the ordinary.
But then, the contractor added another 49% markup on the very same person, billing toll road customers $38 an hour, essentially twice for the same worker.
The workers weren’t happy when they found that either.
“Did you get paid $38 an hour?” reporter Andrea Palacio asked.
“Oh, no, I got paid $15 an hour,” former customer service representative Cheryl Gerhart answered.
“How did that make you feel? That’s what taxpayers are paying,” Palacio asked.
“It’s ridiculous,” Gerhart answered.
The toll roads biggest vendor is electronic transaction consultants. They’re at the center of this case.
Since 2012, the toll road has paid that company $205 million.
I’m not kidding.
That company helped get rid of the folks in the toll road booths.
Everything is now automated. Who knows if that’s really cheaper?
But, it’s time someone take a much closer look.
We all know it’s become a slush fund.
It’s time to pay off the darn roads and make them free. Or at least cheaper.
This should not be a forever thing. We shouldn’t have to pay tolls forever.
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