Parking Meter Outsourcing Costs City, Report Says

"One of the great things about our new contract is that we did make it performance-based," he said. For example, he said, under the new deal, 97 percent of the meters must be operable.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the report says, federal officials asked the District to remove 2,278 meters around federal buildings for security reasons. The Transportation Department did so without negotiating compensation agreements with federal agencies, probably costing the city several million dollars in revenue, the audit found.

When the auditors examined paperwork related to meters along seven sample traffic routes, ACS records showed that there were 1,906 meters on those routes. But the auditors found only 1,236, of which 197 were "completely inoperative."

As for the 670 missing meters, "DDOT management had no clue . . . how many had been removed from service, the revenue implications of these removals, the reason for the removals or how long the meters had been removed."

The report states that in 1993, the most profitable parking-meter year of the decade before privatization, the city took in $13.2 million in revenue against $1.1 million in expenses, for a net gain of $12.1 million -- a return of about $11 for each dollar spent. In the best year under privatization, 2003, the return was $2.63 per dollar spent.

Based on the 1993 expenses of $1.1 million, adjusted for inflation, it would have cost the city $17.6 million to manage parking meters from 1999 to 2005, the report concludes. Instead, it paid ACS $26.4 million.

Staff writer Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.