Higher price for gas in New Baltimore, report said
The Daily Mail
Apr. 4, 2009

ALBANY — The New Baltimore Travel Plaza along the New York State Thruway was one of three rest areas to overcharge drivers for gasoline, according to an audit conducted last year by the state Office of the Comptroller.

The Sloatsburg and DeWitt travel plazas also were found to have violated contract requirements by charging between 2 and 26 cents more per gallon than other stations in the area, according to a press release issued by the Comptroller’s Office Friday.

“The amounts are small, but it can make a big difference to businesses and drivers who are frequent travelers on the Thruway,” state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said.

Drivers paid about $7,900 extra for gasoline at these stations, auditors found.

The Comptroller’s Office conducted its audit of eight stations in Angola, Clarence, Guilderland, Malden and Ulster, as well as the three along the Thruway between May and August 2008.

Jennifer Freeman, spokeswoman for the Comptroller’s Office, said that the New Baltimore station was found to have overcharged customers by 10 cents on three occasions, for an excess of $660.

Freeman said that problems with the New Baltimore station’s operational and cash receipts were apparent when they were compared with those from the other audited stations.

She said Sunoco and Lehigh, which sells Mobil gasoline, have contracts to provide their products to 27 service stations along the Thruway and are required to survey the prices of local gas stations on a weekly basis and adjust their prices upon approval from the Thruway Authority.

Lehigh, she said, conducted station surveys and adjusted their prices more frequently in May and June, when gasoline prices were high, and less frequently when prices started to fall in August.

Freeman said that by doing this, Lehigh was able to sell gasoline for high prices for as many days as possible. This caused travelers to pay an extra $2,900.

Auditors also found that drivers overpaid approximately $5,000 when stations either changed their prices a day earlier than they should have or implemented a new price on the correct day.

Since September, the Thruway Authority has posted gasoline prices for its rest areas on its Web site, as requested by the Comptroller’s Office, Freeman said.

According to Thruway Authority spokeswoman Kimberly Chupa, overall total fuel sales charged to customers during that period were 99.99 percent accurate during the audit period.

She said Sunoco is “taking corrective action” with one of its stations found to have overcharged for its gasoline.

“The Authority is working with Sunoco to recover the overcharges and implement stricter oversight and price check procedures to ensure that this does not happen again,” she said.