Facing a trove of suspect financial data, two new unflattering audits and an ongoing federal investigation, the San Diego Association of Governments voted Friday to write off $67 million in uncollectible fees and penalties as a first step toward broader reforms. Not only that, the new toll system for the troubled state Route 125 will take until July 2025 to fix — months longer than board members of the regional planning agency known as SANDAG were told when they approved an alternative vendor early this year. Agency officials said they have already accounted for the $67 million in uncollectible fees and penalties, and the annual budget would not suffer from the 10-figure revenue hit. “This cleanup is huge,” finance and accounting director Kimberly Trammel told the board. “It will make that (reform) effort manageable going forward.” The massive charge-off affects delinquent accounts that are more than three years old. It represents more than the $56 million the agency collects in annual tolls from Route 125 and the tolled section of Interstate 15. The announcements at the monthly meeting came as the SANDAG board publicly vented that they felt they had been misled — for a second time — by their executive team, a group that has since been completely replaced. “I really, really feel that there’s no lessons learned,” said Vivian Moreno, the San Diego City Council member who represents her city on the planning agency board. “I would be lying if I said I had any confidence in the ability of SANDAG to manage this trust.” Moreno offered one quick fix, the same remedy she pushed earlier this year: “Abolishing the toll would be a clear step in the right direction, and I once again call for an immediate removal of the tolls,” she said. The comments came as San Diego County voters mull Measure G, a proposed half-cent sales tax increase on the November ballot that would raise millions of dollars for transportation projects by the $1.2 billion agency. They also came days after SANDAG’s Office of the Independent Performance Auditor issued two scathing reports — one resurrecting a failure that came to light last year, the other exposing a freshly self-inflicted wound. One finding from auditor Courtney Ruby concluded that previous SANDAG leaders withheld key information detailing how the ETAN Tolling Solutions software could not accurately track billings and fees charged to thousands of drivers. That failure was exacerbated by those detailed in Ruby’s second audit. That report found that the partnership between Deloitte and A-to-Be, the sole-source replacement contractor hired in January to correct the problems by the end of this year, was unable to meet its deadline despite assurances from staff earlier this year that it could. While the agency works to upgrade the tolling system for at least $28 million — and resolve multiple lawsuits related to the lapses — the board voted to move forward with a study to determine whether it can do away with tolls altogether. But like the elusive tolling software fix, that review is no small feat. The SANDAG board agreed to spend $400,000 to identify options for removing any charges for using the 10-mile stretch of state Route 125 formerly known as the South Bay Expressway. But any relief is likely years away. The review alone is expected to take months or longer. In approving the $400,000 study, the SANDAG board rejected spending $200,000 to evaluate the equity of the SR-125 toll charges. Board members complained it would take a year or more and questioned the value of such a review. SANDAG staff said again Friday that doing away with the tolls immediately would raise other difficulties for the agency, which still owes millions on bonds it sold to finance its lease of the asset. State transportation officials will not take over the property until a host of environmental and other assessments have been completed. “Upon board approval, staff will initiate the project initiation phase and start the equity analysis,” the board report said. “Staff will come back to the board at the end of 2025 to provide the results of the studies and options the board can consider for the SR 125.” Also on Friday, the executive board voted to approve $500,000 in legal fees for lawyers representing SANDAG in an ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation, pushing the cost of the federal probe so far to at least $1 million. The flaws in the ETAN Tolling software were exposed last fall, after former finance director Lauren Warrem raised questions about the accuracy of the vendor’s financial information. The board was not told the system was problematic until last October, six years after issues first surfaced. Former SANDAG chief executive Hasan Ikhrata and his top aides only acknowledged the failures last October, after Warrem was fired. Warrem later filed a lawsuit that is still pending in San Diego Superior Court. The ETAN Tolling system billing errors also generated a class-action lawsuit that seeks to recover billings that were wrongly charged to thousands of drivers. Ikhrata resigned in December. Top assistants Ray Major and Coleen Clementson left earlier this year. Chief Financial Officer Andre Douzdjian also tendered his resignation this spring. The SANDAG board hired longtime Caltrans official Mario Orso to lead it in April. Members of the public who attend board meetings pointed to the new audit findings as another reason to oppose the sales-tax ballot measure, which is competing with several cities’ own measures asking voters to raise their sales tax. The board has yet to formally discuss the audit findings released earlier this week. That discussion is tentatively scheduled to be held at the Oct. 25 meeting.