Looking a Gift Horse in the Metro
Department Buys Itself Lavish Gifts While Riders Suffer from Budget-Related Cuts

(Washington, DC) — Employees in Metro's planning department inappropriately used company credit cards to buy themselves lavish gifts with money that could have been used to close the agency's annual budget gap.

The purchases of nearly $10,000 by the planning department's 49 employees, cited in a heavily redacted report released by Metro , included:

• digital cameras
• digital frames
• camcorders
• BlackBerrys
• Kindles
• headphones
• flowers
• gift cards
• a luncheon for over $1800
• 49 copies of "Murdering Nine People on the Red Line at Fort Totten for Dummies"

With another round of fare increases due to take effect, matched by service cuts and ongoing delays in Metro station and car maintenance, Metro's riders are viewing these purchases with especially intense outrage and disgust.

"Why don't they take the $10,000 and fix an escalator?" asked a Metro rider, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Or an elevator? Or for training Metro staff to become human beings?"

Metro said it is "conducting $10,000-worth of training and instruction, as well as establishing further controls that will improve compliance with purchase card policies."

"This means that no purchases over $100 will be allowed in the future," said a Metro spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This will ensure that our policies are followed and customers are repeatedly gouged."