Placing the Pennsylvania Turnpike's tangled web on notice
HARRISBURG
The Pennsylvania Turnpike's well-deserved reputation as the most corrupt agency in state government goes back at least to 1956. That's when a $9.5 million scheme was exposed with a contractor. Twenty-two people were indicted, including two former turnpike commissioners.
A company had been hired to fill mine “voids” on the Northeast Extension; the state alleged 95 percent of the work was fraudulent, adding millions of dollars to the cost. Former Gov. George Leader called the Manu-Mine Scandal, as it was known, “literally highway robbery.”
The agency's reputation was such that when criminal charges were announced last March against eight people — including top agency employees, vendors, consultants and a powerful ex-legislative leader — state Police Commissioner Frank Noonan noted that Pennsylvanians “have all heard rumors about the turnpike (and corruption) for years. It was fairly well known or thought, but there's a big difference between that and having evidence and this is what we have.”
That case against turnpike officials is wending its way through the courts.
New turnpike CEO Mark Compton is committed to changing the culture of the agency. But corruption has been ingrained for decades. To that end, the Turnpike Commission last week hired the former chief of the FBI's Pittsburgh office as inspector general. Ray Morrow will report to yet another retired FBI agent, David Gentile, the chief compliance officer.
Morrow will be paid $120,000 a year. Gentile gets about $150,000.
It's not uncommon for retired FBI agents to work for corporations, investigation firms and even casinos. The idea that a state agency needs two of them tells you how bad it's been at the turnpike commission. On one hand, having Gentile and Morrow on staff is like the little Dutch boy holding back water in a broken dike with his finger. But one can argue that while the former feds might deter smaller corruption, the big stuff might continue through evolving means of deception.
Some advocate eliminating the agency, morphing it into PennDOT. But the turnpike's multibillion-dollar debt prevented it. What do you do with that debt? Stick it to taxpayers?
Since it is apparently going to be around — at least for a while — maybe the best that can be done is to try to change the culture. Knowing there are two highly trained criminal investigators on staff could break the corruption culture's back.
Brad Bumsted is Trib Total Media's state Capitol reporter (717-787-1405 or bbumsted@tribweb.com).
