[PRCo] Re: Heard on PBS

[Fred Schneider]

This may be a very minor item.  You can only eat up so much money on a business
meeting in Spain.   But, quite frankly, I don't seed to spend $347 in Baltimore to
avoid a fleabag hotel.   But those are the perks of management in any business.
You want good managers, you don't get them by telling them to stay at Motel 6.
And, if you are holding a convention, you need a place with meeting rooms of
sufficient size, and Motel 6 doesn't have them either.

Another source has told me that standard PAT practice, like to many government
agencies, has been to keep the staff from the former regime while hiring new ones
comfortable to and trusted by the next manager.  This is not at all unusual in
government.  I lived with it in the state for 31 years.   So, we keep adding to
the payroll.  I've been told (and I won't say by whom) that PAT's number of
employees had remained relatively constant since the energy crisis days in the
1970s in spite of the fact that the number of passengers boarding its vehicles has
dropped by one-third.  That might be an even more important issue than a few hotel
bills.

Derrick J Brashear wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, John Swindler wrote:
>
> > You must be referring to Port Authority Transit, which relys on the public's
> > short memory.  The answer to your question was covered in the November 27,
> > 2002 WTAE-TV's Jim Parson's report.  The title is "Team 4 investigates PAT
> > spending" if anyone is interested in looking it up.
>
> http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/1808462/detail.html
>
> Short summary: the stuff that they're spending? it's money.