The Senate chairman of the Legislature’s Oversight Committee may take the unheard of step of using the committee’s subpoena powers to get to the bottom of spending at the Maine Turnpike Authority.
State Sen. Roger Katz, R-Augusta, said the Government Oversight Committee is “unsatisfied” with some the MTA’s answers to questions raised by the recent 88-page report from the Legislature’s Office of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability.
He especially cited the authority’s lack of complete records on how it spent $157,000 in gift certificates between 2005-07. He said the committee also has more questions about $900,000-plus spent on travel, including bills at three hotel chains during the same period.
Katz said the committee, which will meet Friday with MTA officials, will first ask for the records in writing. If they are not received within two weeks, the committee will consider using its subpoena powers to demand them.
According to OPEGA Director Beth Ashcroft, those powers have never been used in the seven years they have been available to the Government Oversight Committee.
The Maine State Law and Legislative Reference Library said its preliminary search of the record did not turn up any case of a legislative committee using subpoena powers.
“I think it’s fair to say the Oversight Committee has not in the past lived up to its potential, and we have the opportunity to take it in different direction,” Katz said.
In the years the committee had subpoena powers, it was chaired by Democrats. With the Republican sweep of the Legislature last November, all committees now are headed by Republicans.
Meanwhile, most, if of not all, of the state’s quasi-public agencies such as the MTA and the Maine State Housing Authority are run by boards of directors appointed by Democratic governors. Republican Gov. Paul LePage will not have the authority to appoint new members to those agencies until their terms run out later in his own term.
Scott Tompkins, spokesman for the MTA, said, “We have been forthcoming to OPEGA and the committee and we’ll be more than happy to continue this process and provide what they are looking for.”
As for the records of how the gift certificates were spent, however, he said that the MTA has made a thorough review of its record “and they do not exist. That’s a fact.”
Sen. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, said that while some of the MTA bookkeeping “seems sloppy,” she objected to the “tenor” of some of the Republican questions to the MTA at a previous hearing.
She said most of the gift certificates were given to local and community groups, such as chambers of commerce and youth groups.
One of the most strident critics of the MTA has been fellow committee member Sen. David Trahan, R-Waldobro, who said the MTA was one of the most vocal opponents of creating OPEGA, which he had championed.
“Now we see why,” Trahan said.
“They claim to be highly professional and well-organized,” he said. “If that’s the case, there’s virtually no way they cannot know where this money was spent.”
He said that at the Friday committee meeting, he will ask the Attorney General’s Office to rule on whether the MTA has the legal right to hire outside lobbyists to represent the agency at the State House.
The OPEGA report cites $577,000 in costs over a five- year period, “primarily” for lobbying.
Tompkins said only about 25 percent of that was for lobbying; the balance was for legal fees to the same law firm that had done some of MTA’s lobbying, Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau and Pachios.
He also said the MTA has its own legal opinion supporting its right to hire lobbyists.
