New York City’s Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) failed to collect millions of dollars that were supposed to fund more wheelchair-friendly cabs, a recent audit found. Cabs have been charging a 30-cent surcharge on every ride for the “wheelchair fund” – but the TLC let $5.7 million go uncollected from medallion owners over 18 months, according to the audit, conducted by City Controller Scott Stringer.
The cash accounts for 8% of the $72.7 million passengers forked over in fees between January 2015 and June 2016. The money goes into a fund called the Taxicab Improvement Fund, which subsidizes owners to put wheelchair accessible cabs on the road. Half of yellow cabs are supposed to be wheelchair-accessible by 2020.
TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg said a significant amount of the $5.7 million has been collected since the audit, adding that the TLC has continued to collect fees from owners, and is pursuing the rest of the cash. The rollout of accessible cabs has not been delayed.
The city wants to collect the money without being overly punitive at a time when yellow cabs have lost a tremendous amount of business to e-hail services and the value of medallions has plummeted, added Mr. Fromberg.
The audit found that overall, TLC has sufficient controls on its collection of revenue, but also misclassified $1 million in fine revenue because of a coding error.
Source: New York Daily News
