GOVERNMENT
Driving into the sunset Maricopa’s lawmaker was right about transportation department woes
BY JUSTIN GRIFFIN
R
The Arizona Transportation Committee held a hearing last month to review the audit’s findings. The term “sunset” connotes the legislature can do away with the department — or any other state agency that fails the review process horribly — altogether. However, it’s important to note no one discussed taking that extreme action against ADOT during last month’s hearing. Breach or thievery? To get a license, a driver must submit various forms of ID including a passport or social security card and birth certificate to the Motor Vehicle Department, a division of ADOT, and sit for a photo. It demands the exchange of a lot of sensitive information. What if a third party — not the driver nor ADOT — accessed this information? In November 2019, ADOT became aware of a fraudulent pattern being used for theft of public money through its MVD system. ADOT identified 177 accounts with $382,408 in losses of public funds that could
have been used by the department elsewhere. Through its search, Arizona’s auditor general found an additional 83 accounts following the same fraudulent patterns in August for an average of $1,000 each. About half a million dollars in public funds were stolen across 260 incidents. It remains unclear who is responsible. Through its own internal investigations, the department froze the accounts connected to fraudulent activities and, when possible, sent out notices demanding the return of those funds. It never, however, investigated if its system had been hacked nor ensured the personal records of Arizonans on its MVD website are safe. “At the time of the audit, the department had been able to recover $216,412 of the $382,408 it identified, but it had not recovered the remaining $165,996 of public monies,” the audit stated. “Further, the department had not recovered $32,362 related to the additional 83 customer accounts that appear to have a similar potentially fraudulent pattern. As such, the department had not recovered at least $198,358.”
EP. TERESA MARTINEZ, THE vice chair for the Arizona House Transportation Committee and one of Maricopa’s representatives
in the state house, posed the question of whether the Arizona Department of Transportation has run amok at a Maricopa town hall last summer. After an exhaustive look at the department’s Performance Audit and Sunset Review, completed in the fall of 2023, one must wonder if Martinez was on to something. The audit, which was last performed nearly a decade ago by the Arizona Auditor General, uncovered a multitude of issues — a lack of security protocols when it came to the safekeeping of Arizona’s drivers’ personal information on the department’s website, an episode where the agency lost nearly half a million dollars to fraud and a dearth of oversight on third-party vendors who perform exams for drivers looking to earn or renew CDL licenses. The Performance Audit and Sunset Review serves as a mechanism allowing the legislature to hold the department of transportation — and other state agencies — accountable.
State Rep. Teresa Martinez correctly predicted the ADOT audit would uncover lost public funds.
ADOT Director Jennifer Toth took office Jan. 30, 2023, during the middle of the sunset review.
InMaricopa.com | February 2024
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