Our Objective(s)To assess FHWA's process for approving Advanced Transportation Congestion Management Technologies Deployment Reimbursements grant program (ATCMTD) disbursements by reviewing and verifying that program disbursements are supported and valid.
Why This AuditFHWA's ATCMTD grant program reimbursed its grant recipients approximately $89 million from fiscal years 2021 to 2023 to improve safety, efficiency, system performance, and infrastructure return on investment. To protect Federal grant funds from misuse, it is key that FHWA has strong financial management and sufficient oversight of the ATCMTD program.
What We FoundFHWA approved direct recipients' ATCMTD reimbursement requests without always validating the sufficiency of supporting documentation.
The effectiveness of FHWA's ATCMTD financial oversight relies on the Agency reviewing direct recipients' supporting documentation prior to approving reimbursement requests for payment.
For one ATCMTD direct recipient in our sample, there was not enough detail in the supporting documentation to support almost $1.9 million in reimbursements.
FHWA's quarterly reports, used to validate ATCMTD direct recipients' supporting documentation for reimbursement requests, did not identify that $1.9 million in costs were not adequately supported.
FHWA's Office of Acquisition and Grants Management made $1.9 million in payments for unsupported costs.
FHWA does not sufficiently monitor State DOTs' oversight and internal controls for validating ATCMTD reimbursement requests.
FHWA's Stewardship and Oversight agreements largely delegate financial oversight to State DOT ATCMTD grant recipients but the Agency must maintain sufficient internal control processes to validate State DOTs are adhering to fiscal expectations.
However, FHWA was not aware there was insufficient information for approving officials to verify costs State DOTs submitted for our six sampled reimbursements. Also, State DOTs in our sample were not maintaining supporting documentation on all ATCMTD reimbursement requests as required by their Stewardship and Oversight Agreements.
RecommendationsWe made 5 recommendations to strengthen FHWA oversight of ATCMTD reimbursement requests.
