Recommendation: During the next reauthorization for surface transportation programs, Congress should consider including language in the reauthorization bill that would require DOT to develop and implement transparency measures for DOT's review and selection process for discretionary grants. Such measures should, at a minimum, help to ensure that the evaluation process is clearly communicated, that applications are consistently evaluated, and that the rationale for DOT's decisions are clearly documented. Such measures should be developed in line with Office of Management and Budget guidance, federal internal control standards, and recommended practices for evaluating and selecting discretionary grant awards (Matter for Consideration 1)

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, Congress has not enacted a reauthorization measure for surface transportation programs. The current authorization expires on September 30, 2020.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that DOT, in its notice of funding opportunity and evaluation plan for each remaining INFRA-funding cycle, clarify the circumstances under which DOT may select applicants to receive requests for additional information. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, DOT told us that, for the fiscal year 2020 INFRA awards, it plans to provide information in the Notice of Funding Opportunity and evaluation plan explaining under the circumstances under which additional information may be sought from applicants. DOT stated that it plans to complete these actions by March 2020. We will continue to monitor DOT's actions.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Transportation should develop procedures for each remaining INFRA-funding cycle to ensure that when additional information is requested from an applicant, the specific rationale behind the request is documented (for example, to promote geographic diversity among projects), as well as to ensure that DOT documents the rationale if similar projects were not afforded an opportunity to provide additional information. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, DOT told us it will document the basis for seeking additional information from applicants and describe the procedures for doing so in the evaluation plan for the FY 2020 INFRA awards, which it expects to conclude by September 2020. We will continue to monitor DOT's actions.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Transportation should ensure that DOT provides information to applicants in its notice of funding opportunity for each remaining INFRA-funding cycle regarding: (1) how scores on merit criteria are used, if at all, to determine whether projects advance to the Secretary for selection, and (2) how, if at all, DOT plans to use merit scores to determine which projects should receive an award. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, DOT told us that, for the fiscal year 2020 INFRA awards, it plans to provide information in the Notice of Funding Opportunity that will more clearly state (1) that projects are advanced to the Secretary based on how they are evaluated against the selection criteria and (2) how evaluations against the selection criteria are used to determine which projects should receive awards. DOT stated that it plans to issue the Notice of Funding Opportunity by March 2020. We will continue to monitor DOT's actions.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Labor should direct its subagencies, other than ETA, to design and implement a process to manage and administer grantees' compliance with the Stevens Amendment, including determining to what extent to provide guidance to grantees on calculations. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Labor
Status: Open

Comments: In responding to the report, DOL stated that it concurs with the recommendation. DOL's subagency, OSHA, provided written comments and stated that it generally agreed with GAO's recommendation. On March 3, 2020, DOL staff said the agency will provide an update to its response to this recommendation, along with responses to open recommendations from other GAO reports, in several months.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should design and implement a process to manage and administer grantees' compliance with the Stevens Amendment, including determining to what extent to provide guidance to grantees on calculations. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: In a subsequent response to the report, Education stated that it concurred with GAO's recommendation and is considering enhancing its current approach to overseeing compliance with the Stevens Amendment through post-award monitoring activities. On March 9, 2020, an Education Department Official stated that the planned date that work is due to be completed by the applicable program office is 9/30/2020. According to the official, the work will promote consistency across applicable grant programs and enhance their monitoring efforts. The official further stated that Education will develop general monitoring guidance to further check on compliance with the Stevens Amendment for implementation across Education's grantmaking Principal Offices. As a part of monitoring, program offices will be expected to review the Stevens Amendment statutory requirements with grantees and plans to reiterate that grantees are required to disclose for their grant project the percent of the costs financed with federal funds, the federal dollar amount, and the percentage and dollar amount financed by nongovernmental funds when issuing statements, press releases, bid solicitations, and other documents describing their grant project. Education also plans to remind grantees that they must document how the dollar amounts and percentages were calculated in the disclosures and maintain this documentation with their grant file. We will update the action taken in response to this recommendation when further action is confirmed.

Recommendation: The Secretary of Education should complete its evaluation of Second Chance Pell in order to report on the pilot's findings and conclusions reached.

Agency: Department of Education
Status: Open

Comments: The Department of Education concurred with our recommendation to complete its evaluation of the Second Chance Pell pilot. As of August 2020, the pilot was still underway. We will continue to follow up with the Department to ensure an evaluation is completed.

Recommendation: The Director of OMB, working with CFOC, should (1) collect data metrics regularly on the Career Roadmap Builder online tool and Grants Training 101 to determine how widely the resources are being used, and (2) obtain periodic feedback from federal agencies on the usefulness of these tools and any needed improvements. (Recommendation 2)

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open

Comments: OMB staff provided us with oral comments stating that the agency partially concurred with our recommendations. For our second recommendation, OMB agreed that user feedback data regarding the Career Roadmap Builder and Grants Training 101 is useful. However, OMB stated that while it will continue to collect data on the number of users, it believes that federal agencies should be responsible for collecting specific, detailed user data if they are using those resources. We continue to believe that OMB and CFOC would benefit from collecting specific, detailed user data on these tools, which they devoted time and multiple resources to developing. Collecting detailed data metrics that go beyond the number of users can help OMB and CFOC to better evaluate the effectiveness of these grants training tools. Additionally, OMB stated the agency is committed to working with CFOC to review the Grants Training 101 module to determine how useful it is and if any improvements or adjustments are needed. In May 2019, OMB staff said that no action had been taken to date in response to this recommendation. In January 2020, OMB responded in writing to this recommendation stating that it was continuing to collect data on usage for both training tools on the CFO.gov site. OMB specified, however, that the usage data was for the number of visitors on the two sites and on users by agency. OMB went on to say that each agency is responsible for the professional development of its own workforce, and that Federal agencies can, at their discretion, collect user data if the Roadmap and Grant Training 101 are part of their official training program. In addition, OMB stated it had made the Grants Training 101 available publicly for federal and non-federal personnel on CFO.Gov, and that collecting specific user data is not considered by them to be beneficial to demonstrate the usefulness of the materials. Based on this response, we will continue to inquire as to the availability and use of metrics and effectiveness measures for the Career Roadmap and the Grants Training 101 modules.

Recommendation: The Secretary of HHS should establish a process to monitor and evaluate HHS's grants training at the central office level. This process should include (1) a method for identifying all employees working on grants across the agency, and (2) oversight procedures to evaluate the sufficiency of sub-agencies' grants training efforts including the incorporation of leading practices related to assessing competencies, training approaches, accountability, and training results. (Recommendation 3)

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Status: Open

Comments: HHS concurred with our findings and recommendation. In its comment letter, HHS stated that its Office of Grants Policy, Oversight, and Evaluation, within the Office of Grants and Acquisition Policy and Accountability, Division of Grants, in conjunction with the HHS ReInvent Grants Initiative would be developing and implementing a department-wide financial assistance training and certification program to improve the functional effectiveness of the financial assistance management workforce in the areas of internal controls and risk mitigation. The program is designed to support the professional development of the HHS grants management workforce through both instructor-led and online courses. HHS' ReInvent Grants Management (RGM) staff and GAO held a conference call on November 30th, 2018 to discuss how RGM intended to address the recommendation in GAO-18-491 by developing a generalized framework for the Grants Management Training and Certification (GMTC) program for HHS. An HHS official reported that at its December 2019 quarterly meeting, the HHS Division of Workforce Development (DWD) reported they had in the past quarter: briefed the HHS Executive Committee on Grants Administration Policy (ECGAP) on the DWD mission and goals for training the grants workforce; developed briefing documents and presentations based on a RGM developed framework to develop competencies and outline curriculum of the GMTC program; continued to review and refine the program framework to incorporate DWD mission and goals; drafted the initial policy to further inform the structure and procedures of the GMTC program (e.g. certification levels, required coursework, career development requirements), which should be issued by HHS Office of Grants within Federal Fiscal Year 2020; and collaborated with the HHS Grants Closeout Business Process Reengineering Team to discuss current grants closeout status and how DWD can support grant staff and grant recipient closeout training efforts. Given the ongoing nature of HHS efforts, GAO will continue to monitor progress on a quarterly basis.

Recommendation: The Chief Executive Officer should direct the Chief Information Officer to take steps needed to ensure that system requirements are defined to align with the business needs of CNCS's future risk-based grants monitoring process (Recommendation 1).

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: In November 2018, CNCS officials stated that the agency made the decision to terminate the development of the Grants and Member Management (GMM) system. They subsequently awarded a contract to assess the state of development for the GMM system and to provide recommendations on the actions CNCS needed to take in order to implement a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) application for core grants management functions. According to CNCS officials, based on the findings from that assessment, further investments in developing customized applications (even an implementation of a COTS application) were not likely to be successful. As of September 2019, CNCS officials stated that they were pursuing the option of a federal shared service as a solution to grants management. As of November 2019, according to CNCS officials, the agency had not yet defined requirements for the grant monitoring system project because the decision to pursue the federal shared services as a solution for grants management is very recent. CNCS officials agreed to provide GAO with an update as further progress is made on this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Chief Executive Officer should direct the Chief Information Officer to ensure that the system development project schedule identifies in the baseline both planned and actual dates for completing all project-level activities, and can be used to monitor and measure progress of the grant monitoring system project (Recommendation 2).

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: In November 2018, CNCS officials stated that the agency made the decision to terminate the development of the GMM system. They subsequently awarded a contract to assess the state of development for the GMM system and to provide recommendations on the actions CNCS needed to take in order to implement a COTS application for core grants management functions. According to CNCS officials, based on the findings from that assessment, further investments in developing customized applications (even an implementation of a COTS application) were not likely to be successful. As of September 2019, CNCS officials stated that they were pursuing the option of a federal shared service as a solution to grants management. As of November 2019, according to CNCS officials, the agency had not yet established a project schedule for completing the grant monitoring system project because the decision to pursue the federal shared services as a solution for grants management is very recent. CNCS officials agreed to provide GAO with an update as further progress is made on this recommendation.

Recommendation: The Chief Executive Officer should direct the Chief Information Officer to ensure that test plans are defined and implemented to include the second version of the grant monitoring system in all stages of testing during development, and results of initial stages are approved before conducting subsequent test stages (Recommendation 3).

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: In November 2018, CNCS officials stated that the agency made the decision to terminate the development of the GMM system. They subsequently awarded a contract to assess the state of development for the GMM system and to provide recommendations on the actions CNCS needed to take in order to implement a COTS application for core grants management functions. According to CNCS officials, based on the findings from that assessment, further investments in developing customized applications (even an implementation of a COTS application) were not likely to be successful. As of September 2019, CNCS officials stated that they were pursuing the option of a federal shared service as a solution to grants management. As of November 2019, according to CNCS officials, the agency had not yet established a timeframe to define test plans for the selected solution for the grant monitoring system project because the decision to pursue the federal shared services as a solution for grants management is very recent. CNCS officials agreed to provide GAO with an update as further progress is made on this recommendation.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should ensure that CNCS completes its efforts to benchmark its assessment criteria and scoring process to further develop a risk-based approach to grant monitoring and that information from this effort is used to (a) score the indicators so that the riskiest grants get the highest scores; (b) revise the assessment indicators to meaningfully cover all identifiable risks, including fraud and improper payments; and (c) document decisions on how indicators are selected and weighted.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: CNCS has been working since September 2018 to review and update its risk assessment process. The CNCS Office of Research and Evaluation has developed a methodology to determine the appropriate score and weight for the assessment indicators. It plans to fully implement the new risk assessment process in fiscal year 2020. To close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show documentation for how it selected and weighted revised indicators to cover identifiable risks, and how the revised scoring system identifies the riskiest grants.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should review monitoring protocols, including the level of information collected for oversight of subrecipients' activities such as criminal history checks, and enhance protocols, as appropriate.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2019, CNCS stated that revisions to the agency-wide risk assessment instrument include indicators to address prime grantee monitoring and oversight of subrecipients. CNCS established a new Office of Monitoring in 2019, which will be responsible for reviewing and improving monitoring protocols, including those related to subrecipient activities. Enhanced monitoring protocols will be implemented as part of its fiscal year 2020 monitoring plan. To help close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show how it has expanded information it collects pertaining to subrecipients, and how its monitoring efforts reflect this.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should establish activities to systematically evaluate grant monitoring results.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: In July 2019, CNCS reported that the new Office of Monitoring supports the agency's May 2018 Transformation and Sustainability Plan goals related to monitoring and evaluating results. This office is developing a monitoring strategy to align with the agency's IT system improvements, and will allow for reporting and data to support a systematic evaluation of grant monitoring results. To help close this recommendation, CNCS will need to show how the agency has used outcomes and findings from its grant monitoring activities to help guide improvements to these activities.

Recommendation: To improve CNCS's efforts to move toward a risk-based process for monitoring grants and to improve its capacity for monitoring grantee compliance, the Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service should, as part of CNCS's efforts to develop an employee development program, update critical competencies for grant monitoring, and establish a training planning process linked with agency goals and these competencies.

Agency: Corporation for National and Community Service
Status: Open

Comments: As of July 2019, CNCS is in the process of realigning its grant management and monitoring functions. The agency plans to document critical competencies for grant management and monitoring roles and establish a training program to strengthen its grant monitoring performance. By December 2019, CNCS plans to implement a comprehensive orientation curriculum and a more effective onboarding procedure, updated staff support training materials, among other changes to its training efforts. To close this recommendation, CNCS will need to determine which competencies are critical for grant monitoring, and show how the competencies are linked with the agency's training planning processes and agency goals.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct the Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD) and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to incorporate expanded search capability features, such as keyword searches, into its proposed web-based portal for collecting and accessing performance reports to improve their accessibility.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation. EPA also stated that its vision for grants management includes having grant recipients submit performance reports and other information to the agency through a web-based portal. The portal would incorporate capabilities such as key word searches to allow for easier access to performance report information. EPA expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, once EPA's new performance system is in place, to ensure that the Office of Water adopts software tools, as appropriate, to electronically transfer relevant data on program results from program-specific databases to EPA's national performance system.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its general agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will apply it, where appropriate and cost effective, to program-specific databases, not only the Office of Water databases. EPA noted that not all data from program-specific databases may be appropriate for direct electronic transfer to the national performance system; some individual grant data may need to be analyzed before being rolled up into national data. As of December 2018, EPA officials said that continued work on this recommendation is dependent upon EPA's Office of the Chief Financial Officer's deployment of a new performance tracking system and individual program funds for developing systems that interact with it. As of April 2020, GAO is following up with EPA on the status of this recommendation.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to clarify the factors project officers should consider when determining whether performance reports are consistent with EPA's environmental results directive.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will make conforming changes to the implementation guidance for the Environmental Results Order (directive). In December 2018, EPA stated that its existing environmental results directive may be superseded or incorporated into a different policy as part of the agency's migration to a new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). EPA stated that it would incorporate the recommendation into its new policy. However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to expand aspects of EPA's policy for certain categorical grants, specifically, the call for an explicit reference to the planned results in grantees' work plans and their projected time frames for completion, to all grants.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its agreement with this recommendation and stated that it will make conforming changes to existing policy. In December 2018, EPA stated that its existing policies may be superseded or incorporated into different policies as part of the agency's migration to a new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). EPA stated that it would incorporate the recommendation into its new policy. However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD and program and regional offices, as appropriate, as part of EPA's ongoing streamlining initiatives and the development of a grantee portal, to incorporate built-in data quality controls for performance reports into the planned web-based portal based on EPA's environmental results directive.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: In correspondence to GAO, EPA reiterated its general agreement with this recommendation. However, EPA emphasized that identifying and deploying appropriate data quality controls is a long-term effort subject to budgetary considerations, completion of its new grants management system, and extensive collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. EPA officials said that the agency expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD to develop a timetable with milestones and identify and allocate resources for adopting electronic records management for all 10 regional offices.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: According to EPA officials, the Office of Grants and Debarment (OGD) established an agency-wide electronic grants record workgroup in fiscal year 2016. The workgroup identified the contents of the electronic grant file, technical options, and evaluation criteria. OGD completed its alternatives analysis for scope, general approach, and requirements in fiscal year 2017 and EPA expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions). However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: The EPA Administrator should direct OGD to implement plans for adopting an up-to-date and comprehensive IT system by 2017 that will provide accurate and timely data on agencywide compliance with grants management directives.

Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Status: Open

Comments: Implementation efforts are ongoing. According to EPA officials, OGD is conducting a multi-modular project to upgrade the agency's grants management IT system. EPA expected this recommendation to be addressed by its new grants management system (GrantsSolutions), which had been targeted for deployment in March 2020. However, in January 2020, EPA officials told us that EPA had ceased its migration to GrantSolutions after determining the long-term costs were unsustainable and that the system lacked fundamental functionality necessary for core grant operations and to maintain appropriate internal controls. EPA is now migrating towards a modernized grants administration and management cloud solution. EPA expects this recommendation to be addressed when the new grants management system is fully implemented. EPA anticipates deployment of the new cloud solution in December 2020.

Recommendation: To proactively prepare for oversight of future disaster relief funding, the Director of OMB should develop standard guidance for federal agencies to use in designing internal control plans for disaster relief funding. Such guidance could leverage existing internal control review processes and should include, at a minimum, the following elements: (1) robust criteria for identifying and documenting incremental risks and mitigating controls related to the funding and (2) requirements for documenting the linkage between the incremental risks related to disaster funding and efforts to address known internal control risks.

Agency: Executive Office of the President: Office of Management and Budget
Status: Open
Priority recommendation

Comments: To address the recommendation, OMB should issue guidance on internal control for disaster relief funding, including criteria for identifying additional risks and mitigating controls related to the funding and a requirement to link these incremental risks to ongoing efforts to address known internal control risks. On July 15, 2016, OMB issued the revised Circular No. A-123, Management's Responsibility for Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Control. The Circular requires agencies to implement enterprise risk management, which includes the development of a risk profile that analyzes the risks faced in achieving strategic objectives and identifies options for addressing them. In April 2017, OMB staff stated that they believe that the implementation of enterprise risk management through Circular No. A-123 satisfies the intent our recommendation. Because the responsibility for implementing enterprise risk management lies with agency management, Circular No. A-123 does not include specific guidance for identifying risks related to disaster funding. Further discussion and documentation to support OMB's position that the revised Circular addresses our recommendation will be necessary. The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, Sec. 21208(c) requires OMB to issue standard guidance for Federal agencies to use in designing internal control plans for disaster relief funding in order to proactively prepare for oversight of future disaster relief funds. The Act states this guidance shall leverage existing internal control review processes and shall include, at a minimum, (1) robust criteria for identifying and documenting incremental risks and mitigating controls related to the funding, and (2) guidance for documenting the linkage between the incremental risks related to disaster funding and efforts to address known internal control risks. GAO reviewed OMB's actions to implement the law. On June 28, 2019, GAO, 2017 Disaster Relief Oversight: Strategy Needed to Ensure Agencies' Internal Control Plans Provide Sufficient Information, GAO-19-479 (Washington, D.C.: Jun 28, 2019) reported the 2013 recommendation remains open and that we plan to continue monitoring OMB's progress in implementing this priority recommendation. Further, the report stated that OMB did not have an effective strategy to ensure that agencies timely submitted internal control plans; and OMB's Memorandum M-18-14, Implementation of Internal Controls and Grant Expenditures for the Disaster-Related Appropriations lacked specific instructions to agencies on what to include in their internal control plans. As such, a new recommendation was warranted. As of February 2020, OMB has not provided any new status updates for this recommendation.

Recommendation: To support the triennial review program's goal of having grantees consistently meet more federal requirements, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FTA to ensure that additional outcome and quality performance measures are balanced with the existing measures for assessing the timeliness of the triennial review program so that one priority is not emphasized at the expense of others.

Agency: Department of Transportation
Status: Open

Comments: Federal Transit Administration (FTA) anticipates adding a performance measurement, called reduction in repeat findings, that relates to assessing the quality of the review. This has been added to FTA's new Quality Review program focused on improving its Triennial Review program.

Recommendation: To improve the effectiveness of the federal investment in surface transportation, meet the nation's transportation needs, and ensure a sustainable commitment to transportation infrastructure, Congress may wish to consider reexamining and refocusing surface transportation programs to be responsive to these principles so that they institute tools and approaches to that emphasize the return on the federal investment.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, Congress has not yet acted on this recommendation. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act; P.L. 114-94), signed into law in December 2015, is due to be reauthorized in fiscal year 2021.

Recommendation: To improve the effectiveness of the federal investment in surface transportation, meet the nation's transportation needs, and ensure a sustainable commitment to transportation infrastructure, Congress may wish to consider reexamining and refocusing surface transportation programs to be responsive to these principles so that they address the current imbalance between federal surface transportation revenues and spending.

Agency: Congress
Status: Open

Comments: As of November 2019, Congress has not yet acted on this recommendation. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act; P.L. 114-94), signed into law in December 2015, did not address the current imbalance between federal surface transportation revenues and spending. The Act is due to be reauthorized in fiscal year 2021.

Recommendation: The Secretary of the Interior should direct the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs to develop a framework for OIA employees to use in conducting site visits to help ensure objectives are achieved, to assure that relevant information is shared with responsible officials, and to allow more efficient and effective monitoring of issues.

Agency: Department of the Interior
Status: Open

Comments: On May 24, 2017, the Department of Interior (DOI) sent out an email to its staff showing the dissemination of the new format required for completing trip reports by the staff of the Office of Insular Affairs (OIA). The new format requires staff to include travel justification (i.e., purpose/objective, location, and travel period) and trip report (i.e., meetings, site visits, results, and next steps, as applicable.) The intent of the recommendation is for DOI to have a framework that includes (1) status of required single audit reports; (2) the progress of actions to resolve reported internal control weaknesses; and (3) current needs for technical assistance, capacity building, and staff level expertise. Further, the intent of GAO's recommendation is that this information be integrated into a comprehensive monitoring process. We did not see these elements included in DOI's new format. At present, the agency has been unable to provide additional information that supports the development of a framework for conducting sites visits that incorporates procedures about how information will be shared and monitored. In August 2020, the agency informed us that it has taken additional corrective actions some time ago and is in the process of trying to locate the supporting documentation. We will continue to monitor the agency's actions to address this recommendation.