The Wackenhut Corp. overbilled Miami-Dade Transit more than $2 million annually over a three-year period for work that its guards didn't perform, according to a long-awaited county audit released Thursday.
County spokeswoman Vicki Mallette said Wackenhut has 90 days to respond to the findings and repay the county up to $6.2 million or risk having the contract canceled on an emergency basis.
New firms would be brought in to provide security if Wackenhut is removed from the lucrative contract it has held since 1989 and without competition since 1994. The latest no-bid extension at transit, worth up to $17 million a year, expires in November 2009.
Auditor Cathy Jackson's report is also at the center of an unusual lawsuit that accuses Wackenhut of widespread fraud for allegedly overbilling Miami-Dade millions of dollars for unguarded ''ghost posts'' on the transit system and at the Juvenile Assessment Center.
Attorney H. Mark Vieth, representing former Wackenhut employees, seeks to recover millions he claims the company has overbilled Miami-Dade since 2001.
Miami-Dade would receive 75 percent of any money Vieth's whistle-blower suit recovers.
Vieth has argued that as much as $4 million of the annual Wackenhut bills are bogus. If he prevails, the ultimate payout could be tens of millions, because the county's False Claims Act includes a provision for triple damages.
Jackson's audit started in October 2005, shortly after Vieth filed suit the initial lawsuit.
The accusations of widespread fraud also spawned a short-lived inspector general's investigation and a pending criminal probe.
County public-corruption detectives raided Wackenhut's Miami office in mid-December after a tipster said a top company manager was shredding documents just three weeks after receiving an investigative subpoena. Wackenhut voluntarily turned over the records and said the tip was an attempt to smear the company's reputation.
