AASHTO Journal, 5 October 2012
The Federal Highway Administration could improve its Stewardship and Oversight Agreements with the states for the use of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and Federal-aid Highway Program funds, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General (OIG).
The report was conducted to see if FHWA established agreements that reflected federal requirements and priorities and also to see if FHWA has provided sufficient guidance and oversight of the agreements.
After looking over the agreements, OIG reports that FHWA was not fully implementing its statutory oversight responsibilities on about 600 of 2,500 interstate highway projects (which included roughly $5 billion federal funding). Instead, FHWA was allowing states to take responsibility for project oversight, though FHWA is responsible by law.
Another issue OIG discusses in the report is the lack of specific elements in agreements. For example, FHWA’s 2006 Guidance, which was used to develop the state agreements, mandates division offices address five elements in those agreements: environment, right-of-way, safety, systems operations and preservation, and design and construction. However, only 32 of the 55 agreements studied by OIG included all five elements.
“FHWA Headquarters has not provided sufficient guidance and oversight to division offices for the development and update of agreements to ensure that inconsistencies reflect valid differences among the states and to ensure that legal issues are identified,” the report states.
In order to fix these issues, the report suggested several recommendations, including that FHWA establish basic agreement requirements and standards that include federal requirements, program risks, and priorities, as well as require reasons why they might not address significant risks, requirements, and priorities. OIG also would like to see a legal expert review of agreements before they are signed to make sure they are in accordance with law.
FHWA Administrator Victor Mendez responded to the report, stating that he does agree with many of the suggestions, yet perhaps the report is not a full and fair picture of these agreements.
“The OIG draft report does not accurately portray the role of stewardship and oversight agreements, or how agreements fit within FHWA’s overall oversight context,” Mendez said. “[The agreements] are not intended to provide a one-stop-shop for all matters relating to the working relationship between FHWA and the states.”
The full 28-page report, which includes Mendez’s response, is available at bit.ly/OIGFHWA.