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Muni bosses rewarded for inflated stats Zusha Elinson, Bay Citizen Published 08:59 p.m., Friday, July 20, 2012 Muni paid thousands of dollars in bonuses to top executives for meeting or exceeding on-time performance goals, even as the agency inflated its on-time rates by as much as 18 percent. The agency's two previous chief executives, Michael Burns and Nathaniel Ford, received the bonuses. Both have denied knowing about the on-time rate inflation. Ed Reiskin, the current Muni chief, does not have any performance bonuses written into his contract. Shortly after Burns joined the transit agency in 1999, San Francisco voters approved a ballot initiative mandating an 85 percent on-time rate for Muni, a goal it has never reached. The measure allowed the agency to give performance-based bonuses. The Bay Citizen has reported that Muni used accounting maneuvers to boost its on-time rate by 13 to 18 percent for more than a decade. Under the terms of his contract, Burns, who ran the agency until 2005, was eligible for an annual $3,000 bonus for meeting on-time performance goals. He earned the first such bonus in 2001, according to Muni spokeswoman Kristen Holland. That was the year Muni began inflating its performance rates, according to Travis Fox, Muni's chief information officer. Burns earned his second and final $3,000 bonus for meeting on-time goals in 2002. Under his watch, Muni's on-time performance increased from 55 percent in 2001 to 71 percent in 2005, according to the agency's inflated data. Burns received a total of about $30,000 in bonuses for meeting other goals during his tenure. He wrote in an e-mail that he recalled accepting some of those bonuses, but said he had turned down others when the agency's budget was tight. Ford, Muni's CEO from 2006 to 2011, received a total of about $69,000 in bonuses during his tenure, although most of it was not tied directly to on-time performance. One-quarter of his annual bonus was based on 10 factors; improvements to the on-time rate represented one of those factors. During Ford's tenure, the on-time rate improved from 69 percent to 73 percent, according to Muni's inflated figures. A percentage of the bonuses Ford received were based on that improvement, said Paul Rose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. "I believe the board may have recognized my performance regarding on-time performance from one year to the next to note the progress I made," Ford wrote in an e-mail. In a 2010 memo sent to Ford and other top Muni managers, Fox outlined accounting maneuvers that he said resulted in on-time rates 13 to 18 percent higher than the actual rates. Those maneuvers included expanding the definition of "on time" to 4 minutes and 59 seconds late from the previous 4 minutes, and excluding buses that skipped their routes. Ford said he didn't remember seeing the memo, adding that it would have set off "alarm bells." Ford, who is now working as a consultant, said that because those maneuvers were in place before he arrived, the progress Muni made under his tenure was real, based on an "apples to apples" comparison. Burns, who now runs the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, said he had no knowledge of the maneuvers. "This is a level of detail that is something I had no reason to question or be involved in," Burns said. "If I had any indication that 4 minutes and 59 seconds was being used, I would have reported that." Muni officials say they have no plans to recoup the bonus money. The Bay Citizen is part of the independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting. For more, go to www.baycitizen.org. E-mail the reporter at zelinson@baycitizen.org |