Digging Metra a clearer future path

Newly hired Metra Executive Director Alex Clifford came from sunny California just in time to watch how the region’s rail agency handled a blizzard and historic snow totals.

He witnessed his agency have to scale back schedules considerably on that wicked Wednesday and then dig out like all the rest of us.

That baptism by blizzard will be a good introduction for Clifford. He already knows he will need to more figuratively dig his agency out from some significant image and mistrust problems.

Clifford is the boss hired to follow Phil Pagano, the former executive director who killed himself after being accused of taking $475,000 in unauthorized vacation pay over several years.

Clifford, 51, a former division chief in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority system, was hired at an annual salary of $252,000. And so far, he is saying all the right things.

“Reform is one of three key focus areas,” Clifford told the Daily Herald. “Clearly, it’s my belief we need to address the public’s and the legislature’s opinion of this agency.”

Part of that effort, Clifford added, will include being “as transparent as possible.”

Also good news. We welcome every effort at cooperating with the public and the news media and pulling up the curtain on what was for too long a murky operation led by Pagano and board members who gave him too much control and too much of their faith.

Clifford and board members need to review the past and take repeated initiatives to show they have learned from it.

Pagano was wrongfully taking nearly a half-million dollars in vacation payouts, an audit by accountants Ernst & Young last fall noted. It noted, too, that five top executives were allowed to carry over unused vacation time or to be paid for the unused time. The audit noted Pagano’s approved compensation also was at the higher end of the scale. Pagano had too much control and power and the board did not provide enough oversight. Board members were unaware of salary increases for other top officials. The agency had no policy governing the use of company cars given to top administrators. The audit also suggested top executives ignored or violated policies on flight upgrades and meal purchases.

Metra board members took issue with some of the audit’s conclusions, but legislators and others also have raised concerns about multimillion-dollar consulting contracts and there was a protracted battle over whether the rail agency should have an independent inspector general.

A bill to appoint the state’s top ethics officer to oversee all of the region’s mass transit agencies awaits action by Gov. Pat Quinn.

We urge Quinn to sign that legislation. We urge Clifford to study well the history of his new agency and to show us all, soon and often, how he intends to dig it out of its deep drift.