For Immediate Release: October 23, 2008; 1:40p.m.

Statement from the New York State Thruway Authority Regarding Office of the New York State Comptroller’s Audit

As we indicated to the Comptroller’s office a month ago, we have already implemented the recommendations in the audit, and reiterated that the toll increase was justified and needed to keep the roads and bridges safe.

Furthermore, the Audit findings support that the changes made to the Authority's Capital Program were both responsible and necessary under the current economic and capital needs environment.

The Audit states, “...there were many changes in the capital plan between September 2005 and May 2008. To determine whether these changes appeared to be justified, we selected a sample of 60 items that had changed in some respect since September 2005. Based on our testing, we determined that all [emphasis added] of the items in the sample had an appropriate reason to support the changes.”

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