Unpaid Toll Violations Part of Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Audit
A Pennsylvania Turnpike toll plaza at Breezewood. MPD01605 / Flickr via CC BY-SA 2.0
The Auditor General’s Office also plans to examine some of the agency’s previously identified challenges with debt.
Auditors in Pennsylvania are planning to look into why the state’s turnpike commission has been struggling to collect millions of dollars in unpaid tolls.
The skipped payments have involved drivers cruising through E-Z Pass lanes without properly displayed transponders in their vehicles. With a scheduled audit getting underway, the state’s auditor general, Eugene DePasquale, said Tuesday that his office will examine why the commission ended its fiscal year on May 31 with $33.3 million in unpaid E-Z Pass violations.
Many violators do eventually pay.
Commission Chairman Sean Logan noted in a statement issued on Tuesday that the agency received over $31 million in missed toll payments during the last fiscal year.
Logan complained recently to Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV that when it comes to going after toll violators the commission lacks options, such as putting points on people’s licenses.
If someone zooms through a turnpike E-Z Pass lane in Pennsylvania without a transponder, a photo of their license plate gets automatically snapped and they’re mailed a bill. It includes the price of the toll from the furthest entry point on the turnpike and a $25 processing fee.
DePasquale, the auditor general, said on Tuesday: “There may be changes needed to put more teeth into laws or regulations to help crack down on toll scofflaws.”
Failure to resolve unpaid tolls in other states can result in a suspended license or blocked vehicle registration.
There are also horror stories from Virginia, Massachusetts and other states, of drivers getting whacked with fines upwards of $10,000, or even $30,000, for relatively minor tolls violations, some of which they claimed to have committed inadvertently.
Audit Will also Revisit Debt Issues
DePasquale also wants to follow up on concerns raised in a 2013 special report from his office on the turnpike commission’s finances—specifically its debt. The report stated that the financial condition of the commission was deteriorating due to annual payments it had to make to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation under what’s known as Act 44.
The act was approved by the state’s General Assembly in 2007. Prior to that time, the commission was only charged with constructing and operating the state’s turnpike system.
Act 44 called for it to contribute money to help pay for broader transportation costs in the state, including transit. The payment structure was later changed under a 2013 law known as Act 89.
As it stands, the commission is on the hook for $450 million in annual payments to the state Department of Transportation through 2022. Beginning in 2023, the payments will drop to $50 million. And in 2057 they are slated to end.
The primary source of financing for the commission’s payments under Act 44 has been bonded debt backed by toll revenue, which totalled nearly $5.2 billion earlier this year, according to a financial planning document the agency released in June.
In early October, Moody’s Investors Service assigned an A3 rating to $210 million of “subordinate lien” turnpike revenue bonds the commission planned to sell. The rating means that the bonds are considered upper-medium grade and are subject to low credit risk.
After commercial discounts and other adjustments, the commission estimated that toll revenues grew by 7.5 percent to about $925 million in fiscal 2015, from around $860 million in fiscal 2014.
Tolls vary based on vehicle type and distance traveled. But cash prices can range from between $1.70 to $45.95 for a passenger car.
Pennsylvania’s turnpike system includes about 550 miles of roadway. Its “Mainline” traverses 359 miles, east-to-west, across the southern portion of the state, connecting with the New Jersey Turnpike in the east and the Ohio Turnpike in the west.
In July, the turnpike commission approved a 6 percent toll increase for 2016, as it had done during the previous seven years. Logan attributed the need for the toll increase, at least in part, to the obligations the commission faces under Act 44 and Act 89.
(Photo by Ritu Manoj Jethani / Shutterstock.com)
Bill Lucia is a Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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