Our Objective(s)
To assess FTA's oversight of State Safety Oversight Agency (SSOA) compliance with Federal requirements. Specifically, we assessed FTA's (1) communication of its SSO audit oversight methodology, (2) SSO audit process, and (3) reliability of SSO audit data in its recommendation tracking system.
Why This Audit
FTA plays a significant role in promoting the safety of our Nation's public transit systems through its oversight of States' implementation of its SSO program. This program is required for eligible States with rail transit systems in their jurisdiction that receive Federal funding. FTA is responsible for oversight of SSOAs' compliance with Federal requirements and is required to triennially audit the operations of each SSOA as part of its oversight. In response to a directive in House of Representatives Report 117-99, which asked us to analyze SSOAs, we initiated this audit.
What We Found
FTA has not communicated its oversight methodology to SSOAs.
FTA oversees SSO programs primarily through SSO audits.
Although FTA communicates its oversight process to SSOAs, it has not shared the indicators the auditors will look at or the steps they will take to evaluate the SSO program. Therefore, FTA is not meeting its statutory requirement to convey a methodology to SSOAs that describes how it will monitor their effectiveness.
FTA met its requirement to perform SSO oversight, but gaps reduced audit utility.
Since 2019, FTA has successfully completed 38 SSO audit reports that provided 221 findings.
However, for 29 of the 54 findings within our scope of our review, FTA did not include sufficient evidence to support the finding or provide suitable criteria, as recommended under commonly used auditing standards.
FTA's audit documentation did not demonstrate that audits were consistently conducted and that important program risk areas were addressed uniformly.
These issues resulted from insufficient quality control in the audit process.
FTA's recommendation tracking system data for SSO audits is not reliable.
FTA's system for tracking SSO audit recommendations, OTrak, is missing records from the first 2 years of the program because FTA did not populate OTrak with audit findings from prior to fiscal year 2021.
FTA's supervision of OTrak entries is insufficient to provide reasonable assurance that data from 2021 onward are accurate.
Recommendations
We made 5 recommendations to improve FTA's oversight of SSOA compliance with Federal requirements.
