It is obvious to all that the Board wouldn’t be talking about reform if the employees hadn’t got caught.

And if past practice is any example, the Commissioners will go back to governing the Authority as though it was a private slush fund. Spending your money on whatever project that will benefit their political party, their friends or family members.

For those on vacation we found out recently that Michael Joyce, DRPA safety director gave his daughter a DRPA E-Z pass transponder that allowed her to cross the Delaware River for free. Besides this abuse it is alleged that Joyce improperly received pension credits for a part-time, $67,356 solicitor\’s job in Pennsauken. Records show he also received pension credits to which he was not entitled in 2008 for a second, $18,200 solicitor position with the Pennsauken Sewerage Authority. After the story was published Joyce resigned from his $189,000 DRPA job.

A few days after the Joyce story was published Fox 29 News broadcast a report about John Havers a Delaware River Port Authority employee. He was suspended for a month after borrowing toll money to cover party costs and was later moved to a job running a cruise terminal that\’s not currently receiving ships.

Havers left an IOU note with the safe, so he avoided being arrested for embezzlement. Even so DRPA officials suspended him for a month. Fox 29 News revealed that, while suspended, Havers had someone take his SUV from the DRPA to the authority\’s depot to get gasoline. After the suspension, he was transferred to a role running the DRPA\’s cruise terminal despite the shortage of business there these days.

Havers is from Gloucester County, as is DRPA CEO John Matheussen and New Jersey State Senate President Steven Sweeney. Fox 29 sources said Sweeney protected Havers when others at the DRPA wanted him fired, but Sweeney denied that in an interview last week.

And if you happen to be one of the 900 DRPA employees who doesn’t use your two weeks sick leave each year well come Christmas the Commissioners award you with a nice bonus. Fox 29 says that practice cost the public millions each year.

Today the Courier Post released an article about even more wasteful spending practices of the DRPA. The commissioners approved a $700,000 cash grant to Pennsauken Township to be used to convert a neglected five-acre site on Garfield Avenue into a football field. The grant was originally intended to be a loan to spawn private investment in the township.

Pennsauken Mayor Ricardo Taylor Jr., who is a commissioner on the bi-state board, said he opposes DRPA spending toll money on non-transit projects, but he said he wasn\’t going to turn down $700,000 in cash.

The money comes from the balance of a revolving loan fund created in 1993 with a $700,000 gift from DRPA. Pennsauken, Gloucester City, Camden and Philadelphia each had revolving loan funds to compensate the municipalities in some way for local, tax-exempt land surrounding the authority-owned bridges.

Gloucester City spent its $700,000 loan fund renovating a derelict waterfront building now occupied by the Holt Group. DRPA closed out the fund with a zero balance six years ago.

Records indicate Camden City has received $6.9 million from the DRPA for unspecified economic development usage since 1993. Neither the city nor DRPA could produce an accounting of that money the Courier Post reported.

And if all the above isn’t enough to get you mad as \”Hell\” consider this, the DRPA says it is in desperate need of money to maintain the bridges. In July 2011 the tolls on the four bridges will be increased by $1 up to $5 a crossing.