What We Looked AtIn a typical year, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awards over $20 billion in grants for transit system development and improvement, including the purchase of real property for bus facilities, bus rapid transit, light rail, heavy rail, and commuter rail projects. Through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, Congress authorized as much as $108.1 billion to FTA to improve public transportation systems throughout the country. Given FTA’s large investment in these transit projects, we initiated this audit. Our audit objectives were to assess FTA’s oversight of grant recipients’ (1) reporting and (2) disposal of real property funded with FTA grant assistance.What We FoundFTA cannot identify all reportable real property associated with its grants, and real property data depend primarily on recipients’ self-reporting. Additionally, FTA does not conduct real property oversight reviews of all grant recipients with reportable property. FTA also does not enforce its requirement for recipients to maintain real property inventories or verify that their inventories include all reportable Federal interest. Furthermore, FTA does not enforce a regulatory requirement for recipients to submit annual reports on real property. Lastly, FTA’s oversight of real property disposition is inadequate to ensure recipients comply with disposal requirements. One grantee disposed of 62 properties without informing FTA because the grantee was unaware of whether an FTA financial interest existed in any of the properties. FTA’s insufficient oversight of reportable real property creates a higher risk that property will be disposed of without consideration for FTA’s financial interest. Our RecommendationsWe have made eight recommendations to help FTA improve its oversight of real property reporting and improve accountability for both FTA and its grant recipients when disposing of real property no longer needed for its intended purpose. FTA concurred with all eight recommendations. We consider all recommendations resolved but open pending completion of planned actions.
Open Recommendations
| Recommendation Number | Significant Recommendation | Recommended Questioned Costs | Recommended Funds for Better Use | Additional Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yes | $0 | $0 | ||
| Develop and implement processes to identify grant awards since FTA's implementation of the Transit Award Management System that provide Federal funding for reportable real property and use this information to improve oversight of real property reporting. | |||||
| 2 | Yes | $0 | $0 | ||
| Develop and implement a process to identify and provide oversight of real property to active recipients with new grants that do not receive a triennial or State management review. | |||||
| 3 | Yes | $0 | $0 | ||
| Update FTA's Contractors Manual to require contractors to request a current and complete real property inventory that complies with FTA Circular 5010.1E reporting requirements and require contractors to review and verify that the real property inventory complies with FTA reporting requirements. | |||||
| 8 | Yes | $0 | $996,877 | ||
| Establish and implement a process to verify that FTA's financial interest in real property dispositions is managed in accordance with FTA Circular 5010.1E. Implementing this recommendation could put up to $996,877 in funds to better use. | |||||
| 7 | Yes | $0 | $0 | ||
| Develop and implement a process to require grant recipients to annually certify, when applicable, adherence to FTA's requirements for the approval of disposed real property funded with Federal grant assistance. | |||||
