Incoming DART CEO's salary revealed

When the new CEO of DART takes over at the end of this month, he will be earning more than a half million dollars a year. That is an increase from his base salary with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, despite service there being described as a nightmare. Fox 4's Lori Brown reports on the latest. Nat Ford's $515,000 base pay with DART is $51,000 more than what the Dallas City Manager is earning, And it is also more than what the CEO of Los Angeles' public transportation system earns at L.A. Metro. And his salary increase comes amid nearly 200 layoffs at his previous agency. The first red flag I saw was regarding ridership numbers not adding up. Megan Hayward spoke with me last week about a multitude of problems at Jacksonville Transportation Authority under the leadership of Nat Ford. Among them, ridership numbers reported for federal funding purposes did not match the numbers the board was previously given. I noticed that the last three months of 2023 had retroactively changed and added tens of thousands of riders without any notes to the board. We also reported subpoenas by the Florida Attorney General as part of a criminal investigation of JTA. The subpoenas request text messages and emails between Nat Ford, his wife, and a consultant due by the end of the month. A former city councilman described the state of public transportation Nat Ford left behind as a nightmare. The city council, the city of Jacksonville is gonna have to do our own investigation. But now all the system of government is gonna be focused on figuring out what happened here and how do we dig ourselves out of this mess. In order for Nat Ford's employment to be reconsidered prior to his October 26th start date, the chair or one of the eight other DART board members who voted in favor of the hire would need to make a motion. So far DART board chair Randall Bryant has not responded to any of my messages. This is what he had to say in July. He's ran agencies twice as large as DART. And so he has a full, robust knowledge and understanding of transit as a whole, working with federal governments, working with state governments. He's done just about anything that you could ask for out of a transit agency. But since that statement, JTA announced a $40 million budget shortfall, 200 layoffs, and service cuts that included the much-touted autonomous shuttle system called NAVI. Board member Doug Herbacek complained before the July vote that the process was rushed, with Ford suddenly being included among the finalists. Since Friday, red flag after red flag after red flag has been uncovered. And as a board member, we should be able to have the appropriate amount of time to do our research and conduct due diligence before we take a vote. I reached out to the search firm that assisted in the recruitment of Ford to DART, Krofheimer and associates. I have not yet heard back. In Dallas, Lori Brown, Fox 4 News.