For now, no one can make head or tail out of the charges and counter-charges about corruption and cover-up between the MTA’s security director and the MTA Inspector General. What the public can do is look up www.mtaig.state.ny.us to see what the Inspector General has been up to lately. But visitors there are unlikely to conclude that the office does very much.

Although the internet has become a staple of 21st Century information dissemination and public life, and most state and city agencies make good use of the medium, the MTA I.G.’s site has barely been updated since late 2000. That’s when the current I.G., Matthew Sansverie, took office. The last annual report posted there is from 2000, mainly covering activity under Sansverie’s predecessor. The "news and reports" page, where one would expect to find most of the site’s substantive material, lists only the address for a meeting that occurred last January.

The legislation proposed by Assemblymember Richard Brodsky — which would have the state attorney general rather than the governor appoint the MTA I.G., may be given little chance by Albany Republicans, but it’s clear that something needs to be done to reinvigorate the office. What will that take? So far, the investigation of MTA finances by city and state comptrollers, a challenge by the city Independent Budget Office and criticism by every editorial board in the city hasn’t been able to create any movement in Albany. 

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