LIRR has ways to go in adopting audit recommendations, says state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli

The Long Island Rail Road still has major problems in how it keeps track of much of its track equipment, including $1 million worth of hardware that the railroad could not find in its own databases, according to a new state report.

The report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli updates the LIRR’s progress in implementing recommendations made by his office in a 2023 audit that looked at maintenance and inventory practices for “on-rail equipment,” including cranes, track inspection cars and other construction equipment.

In the earlier report, auditors looked at a sample of 30 pieces of equipment, and found that LIRR officials “could not find eight in the database — with an original estimated cost of $1.15 million.”

The audit chided the railroad for lacking “formal policies and procedures for maintaining accurate inventories … leading to missing documentation, late, or incomplete maintenance, and discrepancies in inventory records.”

Since that report was issued, the LIRR has fully implemented just three of 13 recommendations made by auditors, according to the new report.

In a statement, Lucas Bejarano, spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the LIRR’s parent organization, said, “The railroad has focused first on the comptroller’s highest-priority recommendations, and continues to evaluate remaining follow up matters.”

The recommendations implemented by the LIRR included verifying that all required documents, such as vehicle titles, are included in hard-copy folders for different pieces of equipment.

Four other recommendations were partially implemented, and six have not been implemented at all, according to DiNapoli’s office.

Among the recommendations that have not been put in place: ensuring that maintenance records are backed up, periodically reconciling inventory records across different databases, and ensuring that the “LIRR Corporate Policy and Procedure” is followed.

“LIRR made some improvements based on my office’s initial audit, but there’s more work to do,” DiNapoli said in a statement. “It can take steps to ensure equipment and service vehicles are properly maintained, that its expenses are reasonable and that it has an accurate inventory of its vehicles and on-rail equipment.”

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.