Washington D.C. is known for being completely full of crap because of the politicians that inhabit it, but this is ridiculous.
The Office of Inspector General, headed by Geoffrey Cherrington, recently came out with a semi-annual report about the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system, known to locals as the "Metro." The report details how a “single self-cleaning toilet," which hasn’t flushed since 2017, has taken up well over $400,000 to maintain.
The data noting the money spent to maintain the toilet was compiled between 2003 and 2017.
According to the report:
OI [Investigations] received a referral from OA [Audits] indicating that WMATA spent approximately $500,000 maintaining a single self-cleaning toilet located at the Huntington Metro Station. OIG conducted an investigation into this matter and found evidence to substantiate that WMATA spent $416,789.32 based on known invoices between 2003 and 2017. Neither PLNT [Office of Plant Maintenance] nor PRMT [Office of Procurement and Materials] were able to provide OIG [Office of Inspector General] with all invoices, so the known total spent does not include the years of 2007, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Based on spending from the previous years, it is probable that WMATA spent over $500,000 on the self-cleaning toilet that has been out-of- service since the fall of 2017.
That’s right. The $416,000 figure could be on the low end.
Leave it to those in charge of anything in D.C. to waste $500,000 like it’s nothing. Talk about waste (pun definitely intended).
H/T: Reason