Float Brings Call for Audit of Ride-Sharing Program

Following disclosures that $100,000 is being invested in a parade float to promote ride-sharing, transportation officials ordered an internal audit Monday of the entire ride-sharing program to see if there were any more questionable expenditures.

Jim Drago, a spokesman for the California Department of Transportation, confirmed that the audit of the $8.4-million program was requested by J. F. Maloney, the agency’s chief deputy director, to determine “if all the money is being spent properly.”

“Any time the merits of any program are questioned, as a matter of routine we would go back and look at it,” he said. “We want to know if the money is being spent as intended to promote ride-sharing.”

Caltrans has been criticized by several legislators, including the chairmen of both the Senate and Assembly transportation committees, for a decision to spend $100,000 on a float for the Tournament of Roses Parade. The float, depicting magical characters, encourages motorists to do their part to help unclog highways by sharing rides.

Drago said the state would continue with the float project.

Caltrans’ $100,000 investment covers half the cost of the float. The rest is being met by other government agencies and private companies.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) called the $100,000 expenditure “ill-timed” because he said it gave the impression that Caltrans did not know how to spend additional gas tax money approved by the voters in June. By approving Proposition 111, voters endorsed a phased-in, 9-cents per gallon gasoline tax increase.

“On Dec. 1, fuel taxes (increased) another 5 cents per gallon nationally, and on Jan. 1, 1991, the state fuel tax rate will increase another penny a gallon,” Katz wrote to Caltrans. “The first and most visible use of those new revenues will be a parade float. That’s not what the voters expected when they approved Proposition 111.”