Audit: Port Authority on path to reform

Management of the Port Authority, an agency labeled as "dysfunctional" by its auditor seven months ago, has taken steps toward reform, a new audit report states.

The auditors also found that last year's toll and fare increases on Port Authority bridges and tunnels were "necessary."

The Port Authority made public the second phase of an audit report by auditors Rothschild and Navigant.

In September 2011, toll and fare increases took effect on the Port Authority's interstate bridges and tunnels.

The audit, released Wednesday, found that the toll and fare hikes -- and more scheduled to go into effect later this year -- were necessary to support the agency's capital plan for maintenance of its bridges and tunnels.

The Port Authority's series of toll hikes will increase rush-hour tolls for E-ZPass holders on the George Washington Bridge to $12.50 and $15 for cash tolls by 2015. Tolls are now $9.50 per trip for E-ZPass users and $12 for cash toll payers.

On Dec. 2, the next scheduled toll increase will begin, when cash tolls will increase to $13 and E-ZPass will rise to $10.25 during peak hours.

Last fall, AAA New York and AAA New Jersey filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the Port Authority's toll hikes.

The lawsuit claimed that the toll increases were going to pay for cost overruns at the World Trade Center rather than to pay for bridge and tunnel maintenance, a violation of federal law.

The Port Authority owns the World Trade Center site.

However, Steve Coleman, Port Authority spokesman, said "no toll money was, or will be used on the World Trade Center project."

Robert Sinclair Jr., a AAA New York spokesman, said the lawsuit will continue despite the findings of the Port Authority's auditors.

"To be in as bad as shape as they were, this is just a miraculous turnaround," Sinclair said. "And one we're incredulous about."

In February, a report by Chicago-based consulting firm Navigant portrayed the agency as "challenged and dysfunctional" and long beset by inconsistent leadership, bureaucratic fiefdoms, inadequate cost controls and poor management of capital projects. It called for a "top-to-bottom overhaul" of the agency.

"Today's conclusions by two independent reviews show that the Port Authority is finally on the right track, and the necessary reforms put into place by the agency's leadership are beginning to deliver results, just as we demanded," Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Gov. Chris Christie said in joint statement.

Redevelopment of the World Trade Center, which was supposed to cost $11 billion in 2008, has ballooned to $14.8 billion.

With Maria Alvarez