AUGUSTA — The Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee voted unanimously Friday morning to launch a performance audit of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, which oversees the Amtrak Downeaster train service from Maine to Boston.
The investigation was requested by Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, who said his chief concern is transparency within the agency around the issue of whether it is using taxpayer dollars appropriately and efficiently.
The vote means that the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, a nonpartisan government watchdog agency which the Government Oversight Committee directs and oversees, will launch a probe as its resources allow. The first step in that process is preliminary data gathering, followed by further votes by the committee that will define the scope of the investigation.
“I’m not going to sit here today and say somebody did something terribly wrong,” Gerzofsky told the committee. “I’m going to ask the committee to see if everything was done right. … If we’re not going to do it, nobody’s going to do it.”
Gerzofsky said he and town officials in Brunswick and Freeport have had difficulty acquiring information and data from NNEPRA and have been told at times to file requests under Maine’s Freedom of Access Act.
Patricia Quinn, the authority’s executive director, told the BDN on Thursday that use of the FOAA process is encouraged so the authority’s six employees can document, track and prioritize requests for information. She said NNEPRA would cooperate fully with OPEGA’s probe.
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