Snippy wrote:

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Wonder how much trauma the poor engineer will suffer from this complete piece of shit's last selfish move of his life?

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Typical management........ used the last sick act of his pathetic life to fuck over the employees.......

(The following story by Dan Simmons, Stacy St. Clair and Richard Wronski appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on May 8, 2010. Doug Davidson is a member of Division 96 in Chicago and is the Assistant Director of Arbitration for the BLET National Division.)

CHICAGO Suspended from his job and facing a criminal investigation, Metra Executive Director Philip Pagano stepped onto the railroad tracks Friday morning and waited for his train to come.

In just a few hours, Metra's executive board was scheduled to hear about the financial irregularities that occurred under his watch. The results of an internal investigation were to be handed over to federal authorities and the Illinois attorney general's office.

As he walked onto the tracks, Pagano surely knew the pain this decision would cause. In his 26 years with Metra, he had met with dozens of devastated engineers after they unwilling participants in someone else's suicide attempt. He had allocated more than $1 million for safety programs to prevent situations like this.

An inbound commuter train carrying two dozen passengers came barreling through Crystal Lake shortly after 8 a.m. The engineer told officials in a statement that he saw Pagano about 5 to 10 seconds before impact.

Despite the locomotive's squealing brakes and piercing air horn, Pagano stood firm in the middle of the tracks. He looked the engineer right in the eye.

He was killed instantly.

At the scene, authorities found Pagano's wallet and a copy of Metra's procedures for a service disruption after a suicide, sources said.

He also left an apparent suicide note at his Crystal Lake home, McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren said.

"I'm shocked at the whole thing," said Doug Davidson, an official with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. "He would definitely know the impact it would have on the engineer and others on the train. You question whether he was making a conscious statement to the world."

In Chicago, Metra abruptly canceled the emergency meeting. The board also delayed plans to turn over the results of its internal investigation to several law enforcement agencies. Officials will not say when or if the report will be released.

Pagano, 60, was placed on administrative leave with pay April 30 after Metra Chairwoman Carole Doris said she learned he had received an unauthorized $56,000 "bonus" on top of his $269,625 salary. Metra does not pay bonuses.

Sources told the Tribune that Metra's special counsel has looked into whether Pagano drew a salary advance on vacation time for 2010 and 2011 without authorization. Pagano got 11 weeks a year of vacation, meaning that one year of his vacation pay equals about $57,000.

The financial irregularities date back several years, sources said.

Cook County prosecutors have launched their own criminal probe.

Pagano met with agency investigators on Wednesday and admitted to financial irregularities that included the vacation cash-out and advances from his retirement fund, sources said. He had made a similar confession to board members at a closed-door meeting last week.

Board members said he seemed to recognize that his career would end in disgrace.

"He knew he had embarrassed his family and Metra," board member Jack Schaffer said.

While showing remorse on several occasions, Pagano repeatedly refused to explain the reasons for his actions to Metra officials. He denied taking the money to pay for illegal or immoral activities.

"It wasn't drugs or alcohol or gambling or any crazy thing," Schaffer said.

Pagano's attorney George Jackson III declined to comment on the meeting, citing respect for Pagano's family. He described his client as "a wonderfully nice guy."

Others who knew the occasionally gruff Pagano described him as a hardworking public servant who cared about Metra's employees. Friends said he took pride in running the nation's second-largest commuter rail system and providing more than 80 million passenger trips a year on the agency's 11 main lines.

Pagano joined Metra in 1984 and became the executive director four years later. During Pagano's tenure, Metra invested more than $5 billion in improvements to the system, including renovated tracks, new stations and upgraded trains. In 2006, the agency completed the expansion of its North Central Service as well as extensions of its Union Pacific West Line to Elburn and its SouthWest Service to Manhattan, with the projects finished on schedule and $50 million under budget.

"He was an icon here," Schaffer said. "Family was the only thing he loved more than Metra."

Metra released a statement praising Pagano's "good work" on the agency's behalf and extending its sympathies to his family. There was no mention of the internal investigation.

"Phil served this agency with distinction for many years," the agency said. "Today, we shall remember the good work he achieved with our board of directors and the men and women of Metra. He was dedicated to our passengers and he always considered the men and women of Metra his family and there is a tremendous sense of loss within the agency."

An autopsy was expected to be performed Saturday.

The engineer involved in the incident will receive counseling through his union, Davidson said.

"Like all engineers, it's something that he'll struggle with for a long time," Davidson said. "Phil Pagano knew that very well."

Monday, May 10, 2010

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Chicago rail chief suicide scars Metra engineer

Pagano surely knew the pain this decision would cause. In his 26 years with Metra, he had met with dozens of devastated engineers after they unwilling participants in someone else's suicide attempt. He had allocated more than $1 million for safety programs to prevent situations like this. He looked the engineer right in the eye. Authorities found a copy of Metra's procedures for a service disruption after a suicide, sources said. "He would definitely know the impact it would have on the engineer and others on the train. You question whether he was making a conscious statement to the world." He had received an unauthorized $56,000 "bonus" on top of his $269,625 salary.He seemed to recognize that his career would end in disgrace. "He knew he had embarrassed his family and Metra," "He was an icon here," Schaffer said. "Family was the only thing he loved more than Metra." The engineer involved in the incident will receive counseling through his union, Davidson said. "Like all engineers, it's something that he'll struggle with for a long time," Davidson said. "Phil Pagano knew that very well."

May 10, 2010

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What a piece of shit.

(The following story by Richard Wronski and Erika Slife appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on May 14, 2010.)

CHICAGO Metra's longtime executive director, Phil Pagano, amassed so much unchallenged power that he felt confident enough to forge the signature of the agency's chairwoman as part of a scheme to improperly give himself nearly half a million dollars in vacation pay, an investigation disclosed Friday.

The allegations were contained in the executive summary of a report released one week after Pagano the subject of a rapidly expanding inquiry into financial irregularities stepped in front of a Metra train near his home in Crystal Lake.

Besides outlining the "blatantly illegal" advances Pagano took on vacation pay, the investigation also showed Pagano faced serious financial concerns, borrowing $839,000 against the value of a deferred compensation account and an insurance policy. Those concerns were not spelled out in the report.

"This investigation revealed substantial evidence of financial irregularities and abuses carried out by a person at the highest level of Metra who, as a result of that position, was in the best position to perpetrate these acts," special counsel James Sotos concluded in his report to Metra's directors.

Pagano, 60, improperly took $475,000 $225,000 for cashing out vacation pay from 2007 to 2010, and $250,000 between 1999 and 2006, Sotos' report found.

The report paints a picture of Pagano as someone who over 20 years at the agency consolidated control to such an extent that his authority was unchallenged. It also portrays someone who developed a growing need for cash atop his generous Metra salary, most recently $269,625 a year, and who would go to any lengths to get it.

"In the end, it seems no one was willing to tell Pagano no," Sotos wrote in the report.

Sotos said he planned to ask the Metra board to fire Pagano on the day Pagano took his life.

The report will be turned over to the Illinois attorney general's office for a possible criminal investigation and to any other agency that requests it, Sotos said, adding that Pagano violated Metra's rules of conduct and "likely various state and federal criminal laws."

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office said Friday it has asked Sotos for the report, some portions of which were not disclosed publicly at Fitzgerald's request.

It wasn't until Jan. 11 that Pagano's abuse of power began to unravel. When his authority to pay himself for 2010 and 2011 vacation time was questioned, he submitted memos authorizing the payments and bearing the signature of Metra Chairwoman Carole Doris. The signatures were forgeries, discovered by Doris last month, Sotos said in the 14-page executive summary.

Pagano "had the trust and confidence of the staff at Metra, this board and previous boards," Doris said. "Our error was in trusting too completely, too deeply."

Sotos' report didn't delve into the reasons for Pagano's continued desire for cash. In closed meetings with Metra directors and Sotos, an emotional and remorseful Pagano admitted he had erred but offered no explanation for his actions, other than that it was a "family matter," the officials said.

"There was a great deal of trust that was placed in Mr. Pagano by a lot of people in this organization," Sotos said Friday. "As a result of that trust, the usual accountability (was) not in place."

In his report, Sotos referred to a document which he called the "Ladd certificate," referring to Metra's former longtime Chairman Jeffrey Ladd.

Pagano claimed this document, allegedly signed by Ladd in 2005 or 2006, authorized the executive director to be awarded additional vacation time and to be paid for any unused time, in lieu of carrying it over into the next year.

But several significant factors undermined Pagano's attempt to justify his cash payouts on that basis, Sotos said. No original version or even a signed copy of the Ladd document could be found, the report noted.

The investigative report also alleged the circumstances surrounding the Ladd document "smack of transparent efforts to create a paper trail to justify practices that were clearly inappropriate."

Ladd, an attorney, did not respond to calls for comment Friday. Neither did Pagano's attorney, George Jackson III.

Ladd surfaced in the 2008 trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was a key fundraiser and adviser for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Ladd testified under a grant of immunity from prosecution about his dealings in 2004 with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which Rezko and political insider Stuart Levine controlled.

Ladd, a veteran lobbyist, told the Rezko jury he had been hired by hospital groups to represent them before the board, and testified that his clients paid $80,000 to a Rezko associate to keep Rezko from secretly working against them.

Sotos said in his report that from January 1999 to 2006, Pagano cashed out roughly 80 percent of his yearly vacation allotment at the beginning of the year whether he took the time off or not, and all of his vacation time since 2007.

The investigation, Sotos said, did not turn up any wrongdoing on the part of any other Metra employee. But he did determine Metra had "a troubling lack of oversight and accountability which needs to be remedied."

At Doris' recommendation, Metra's directors on Friday approved several measures to tighten oversight at the agency. The actions include appointment of Metra's chief internal auditor, Eric Fernandez, as acting inspector general to serve as an internal watchdog.

Monday, May 17, 2010

(The following story by Richard Wronski appeared on the Chicago Tribune website on May 19, 2010.)

CHICAGO Longtime Metra chief Phil Pagano was paid more than $1 million this year as a result of taking vacation pay and a one-time payout from a deferred compensation plan and Metra-funded insurance program, records show.

Documents obtained by the Tribune show Pagano receiving ever-more generous salary and benefits over the course of his 20 years as head of the nation's second-largest commuter rail agency. They also show a liberal use of his Metra expense account.

Pagano used a Metra credit card to pay tabs at a variety of hotels and restaurants throughout the Chicago area and Springfield, including a $3,500 charge on Feb. 28, 2007, at the Sangamo Club, a private club near the Capitol frequented by politicians, records show.

Pagano committed suicide May 7, less than two hours before Metra's directors were to act on a recommendation that he be fired.

Pagano became "more and more aggressive" in the past two years at seeking vacation pay on top of his salary at Metra, said special counsel James Sotos, who investigated the matter at the request of Metra directors.

Pagano forged Metra Chairwoman Carole Doris' name on two memos authorizing him to receive two $57,000 vacation payments because he was "badly in need of money for personal reasons," Sotos said in a report on his findings.

Sotos said Pagano violated Metra's policies and "very likely" state and federal laws by taking a total of $475,000 in unapproved vacation pay over the years and creating the forgeries in attempt to cover up the most recent payments.

The pay records shed no light, however, on why Pagano may have needed the money or what he did with it. When questioned, Pagano was tight-lipped, Sotos said.

"The only thing he told me was that he very much needed the money and he didn't want to bring anyone else into it," Sotos said. "(He said) the money was not for anything that was illegal (and) the money was not for anything that was immoral. He declined to further elaborate."

Pagano's base pay rose steadily through his years as Metra's executive director, reaching almost $270,000 last year, up more than 10 percent from 2005.

But non-salary compensation, such as money for sick days and up to 11 weeks of vacation a year, drove his total pay up more than 16 percent in those years, hitting $441,230 in 2008, records indicate.

Because of heavy borrowing against the deferred compensation and life insurance programs, Pagano ended up owing Metra about $127,000, officials said.

Metra officials are studying whether the money will be repaid from Pagano's 401(k) or IRA accounts.

The deferred compensation and insurance packages were set up in 1989 for Pagano and recently retired deputy executive director Richard Tidwell. Both became eligible for the money at age 60, which Pagano reached this year.

Records show Pagano claiming expense account charges totaling $14,158 in 2007 and $16,628 from mid-2008 to this year.

Metra spokeswoman Judy Pardonnet on Tuesday did not have specific information on the expenses and whether they were appropriate.

Pardonnet said Metra's auditor routinely reviewed Pagano's expense account and requested that Pagano pay for any personal expenses.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010