Sneak Preview: GAO Urges DOT, DOL To Address Key Recommendations
(The following is excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants Compliance Expert article.) After six years, the Department of Transportation (DOT) still has not fully addressed a key Government Accountability Office (GAO) priority recommendation related to the selection process for discretionary grants, according to a recent GAO report to the agency.
In a July 12 report to DOT, GAO said that the agency has implemented actions in response to 76% of GAO total report recommendations for DOT made as of 2017. As of April, DOT still had not addressed 167 open recommendations. Of these, GAO has 16 open recommendations that it deems a priority that could significantly improve DOT’s operations “by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud and abuse; or making progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue.”
GAO issued a report in December 2016 on the Hurricane Sandy Transit Grant project selection process, concluding that the agency did not take sufficient steps to ensure that the project-evaluation process was consistently and appropriately documented. Because GAO recognized similar issues with other DOT programs, it recommended that DOT issue a directive that governs departmentwide and modal administration discretionary grant programs that would include requirements to: (1) develop a plan for evaluating project proposals in advance of issuing a notice of funding availability that defines the stages of the process, including how the process will be overseen to ensure a consistent review of applications; (2) document key decisions, including the reason for any rating changes and the officials responsible for those changes, and how high-level concerns raised during the process were addressed; and (3) align stated program purpose and policy priorities with the evaluation and selection process.
DOT agreed with the recommendation at the time and issued a memo to internal staff to update policies and procedures for its grant programs in response to the recommendation. However, GAO noted that as of May, the agency still has not defined how key decisions will be documented, as GAO recommended, and said that the memo exempted some of the agency’s largest discretionary grant programs.
“To fully implement this recommendation, DOT needs to create a comprehensive, department-wide approach to ensure that its discretionary grant programs are consistently and transparently administered,” GAO explained. “Such a directive would help to ensure the integrity of future DOT discretionary grant award decisions and that awarded projects align with identified agency priorities.”
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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