Ex-NORTA executive was being investigated for mishandling money. He still got a pay raise

By Joni Hess and Blake Paterson, Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate (TNS)

NEW ORLEANS — A since-fired Regional Transit Authority executive who repeatedly exceeded his authority in approving almost $1 million in no-bid work to a single contractor was granted a merit-based pay raise shortly after agency officials began investigating his misconduct.

Records show RTA administrators signed off in July on a salary bump of nearly $7,500 for former facilities director John DiLosa Jr. That was less than a week after a series of unauthorized work orders approved by DiLosa began raising red flags among the agency's top brass.

The raise was DiLosa's third in two years at the RTA. It pushed his annual salary to $132,288, about 23% more than his starting wage.

Though the July raise included a 3% boost for "merit," an RTA spokesperson said "all administrators" received an identical raise that month, regardless of their work product. Everyone, including DiLosa, also got a 3% cost-of-living increase.

DiLosa's conduct — and the RTA's response to it — has thrust the public transit agency into turmoil in recent weeks, sparking calls from state legislators for reforms and attracting attention from the FBI.

Half of the RTA's eight-member board of commissioners resigned after an investigative report by an outside law firm suggested that the RTA's leadership hadn't been transparent with board members about the contracting snafu.

The board-commissioned report also raised questions over whether authority CEO Lona Edwards Hankins treated DiLosa's behavior with the seriousness it warranted.

The exodus has left the RTA board without the quorum necessary to conduct official business, like approving contracts.

Raises despite red flags

During his employment, DiLosa was repeatedly dinged by his supervisors for poor performance. He lost access to an RTA credit card after he failed on three separate occasions to follow policy on how to use it, and he often missed deadlines, the report noted.

Hankins — who was DiLosa's direct boss as the RTA's chief of infrastructure until December 2022, when she was promoted — told investigators that despite holding an executive position, DiLosa required "constant micromanagement."

Ryan Moser, DiLosa's supervisor after Hankins took the job, told investigators that "when a problem would arise, DiLosa would consistently feign a lack of knowledge and express appreciation for the correction."

After receiving the pay raise in July, DiLosa "went AWOL" from the RTA, failing to show up for nearly a week, according to the law firm's report.

By then, DiLosa was in hot water.

He had repeatedly allowed BRC Construction Group to perform work in excess of the contract's board-approved funding cap, and RTA officials were scrambling to clean up his mess.

In August, Hankins asked a board committee to approve a $550,000 "change order" to BRC's original $250,000 contract, which had already been amended twice before. That pushed the total value of the contract to nearly $1.3 million.

Neither Hankins nor Moser disclosed to the board that the additional funds were needed to pay for work already completed, as opposed to work that was being considered.

DiLosa continued to sign off on BRC's project proposals in the months that followed. The firm says its work eventually totaled more than $1.7 million, and that it is still owed $918,000.

DiLosa was fired from his job in October — not for repeatedly violating agency policy, but because he refused to sign a performance improvement plan.

'Way more than the CEO'

Some RTA board observers have suggested that DiLosa may have received lenient treatment from Hankins in part because the RTA chief was friendly with DiLosa and his wife, Kimberly.

In April, a month after Hankins was named permanent CEO of the agency — a promotion that came with a $315,000 annual salary — DiLosa's wife took to Instagram to cheer.

"So happy to have Lona Edwards Hankins," she wrote under a picture of the two women standing shoulder to shoulder. "She is way more than the CEO of RTA to the DiLosa 5! Today was life-changing!"

Three months later, when DiLosa failed to show up at work for a week, Hankins texted his wife to try and track him down, the law firm's report notes.

But Hankins' attorney Bill Aaron minimized any relationship between the parties. "At best, you're talking about acquaintances," he said.

Hankins also helped secure a raise for DiLosa less than a year after his hiring.

DiLosa was hired at the RTA in 2021 with a $107,822 salary. Eight months later, DiLosa apparently received a new job offer from his previous employer, Cherokee Nation Federal Consulting, which he used to leverage a raise.

Hankins asked him to send the offer to her, which he did. And though several months had passed since the offer, it was used to justify a raise to $120,000 — $2,000 more than Cherokee had offered him — along with a letter from Hankins praising his work ethic.

At the same time, DiLosa received a $4,800 cost-of-living adjustment, boosting his salary to $124,800.

The raises came as DiLosa faced some financial headwinds. According to his personnel file, the federal government garnished at least $15,118 from his wages between February 2022 and April 2023 for "non-tax debt" he owed to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Records show DiLosa received a $20,602 loan from the SBA through the pandemic Paycheck Protection Program in 2021, though that was forgiven.

According to his resume, from 2010 to 2011, DiLosa worked on rebuilding New Orleans schools damaged by Hurricane Katrina as a project manager with Jacobs Engineering, which held a huge contract with the Recovery School District. At the time, Hankins was helping to manage capital projects for the RSD.

Through her attorney, Hankins said she knew DiLosa for a short period back then, but after he quit that job, she didn't hear from him again until he applied to work at the RTA.

Other powerful friends

In August, as DiLosa was facing mounting scrutiny at the RTA, he applied for a job with the Orleans Parish School Board, records show.

He included three "mentors" as references: Hankins, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D- New Orleans, and City Council member Oliver Thomas.

Carter said he knows DiLosa, who like him hails from Algiers, primarily through his work as a photographer. DiLosa, who owns ASolid Photography LLC, frequently shoots Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club events.

Carter said DiLosa is "someone that I've known for a long time and that I stand by. I know him to be an upstanding individual."

Just last month, Mayor LaToya Cantrell awarded DiLosa a "Key to the City" for his "dedication and commitment to capturing New Orleans through the lens of his camera." A spokesperson for Cantrell said the honor was given at the request of DiLosa's family.

Thomas said DiLosa was one of hundreds of young people involved in a former mentorship program he started, Boys-to-Men, which helped support youth from single parent households and those who were failing school.

Thomas said he was aware DiLosa listed him as a reference, adding that over the years he's been put down as a reference for many people.

Thomas said that DiLosa was a "smart kid." He said he wasn't aware of any issues involving DiLosa's tenure at the RTA, noting the agency has various problems that require attention.

What problems? "Power struggles. Lack of oversight," Thomas said. "Politics at its best."

Both DiLosa and his wife declined to be interviewed for this story.

Aaron, Hankins' lawyer, said the report by the Transcendent Law Group seemed designed to cast blame on Hankins rather than where it belonged, on DiLosa.

"They seemed to not focus on what the real issues were, which was DiLosa," Aaron said. "They were focused on the aftermath."

Aaron also raised questions about some of the board members' resignations, saying he thought they had motives beyond the contract investigation.

"Sometimes people quit because they can't get their way," he said.

Staff writer James Wilkins contributed to this report

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