[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 141 (Thursday, July 23, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43832-43833]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-18062]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Transit Administration


FTA Supplemental Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Apportionments, 
Allocations, and Program Information

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) annually publishes 
one or more notices to apportion funds appropriated by law. If less 
than a full year of funds is available, FTA may publish multiple 
partial apportionment notices. This notice is the second notice 
announcing a partial apportionment for programs funded with Fiscal Year 
(FY) 2015 contract authority.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information about this 
notice contact Kimberly Sledge, Acting Director, Office of Transit 
Programs, at (202) 366-2053. Please contact the appropriate FTA 
regional office for any specific requests for information or technical 
assistance. A list of FTA regional offices and contact information is 
available on the FTA Web site at http://www.fta.dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Overview

    FTA's public transportation assistance program authorization, the 
Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), expired 
September 30, 2014. Since that time, Congress has enacted short-term 
extensions allowing FTA to continue its current programs. The most 
recent extension, the Highway and Transportation Funding Act of 2015, 
Public Law 114-21, (May 29, 2015) continues FTA's transit assistance 
programs through July 31, 2015.
    More specifically, it extends contract authority for the Formula 
and Bus Grants programs at approximately 83 percent of the FY 2015 
levels until July 31, 2015.
    FTA's full-year appropriations, the Consolidated and Further 
Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, Public Law 113-235 (Dec. 16, 
2014), hereinafter ``Appropriations Act, 2015'' was enacted in 
December, 2014, giving FTA appropriated resources for all of FY 2015 
for Administrative Expenses, Capital Investment Grants, Research 
programs, and grants to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation 
Authority. The Appropriations Act, 2015 also provides a full fiscal 
year obligation limitation on contract authority made available to FTA 
programs funded from the Mass Transit Account of the Highway Trust Fund 
during this fiscal year.
    On February 9, 2015, FTA published an apportionments notice that 
apportioned approximately 8/12ths of the FY 2015 authorized contract 
authority among potential program recipients based on contract 
authority that was available from October 1, 2015 through May 31, 2015 
(80 FR 7254). That notice also provided relevant information about the 
FY 2015 funding available, program requirements, period of 
availability, prior year unobligated balances, and other related 
program information and highlights. A copy of that notice and 
accompanying tables can be found on the FTA Web site at http://www.fta.dot.gov/apportionments.
    This document provides notice to stakeholders that FTA is 
apportioning the available FY 2015 authorized contract authority--
October 1, 2014 through July 31, 2015--among potential program 
recipients according to statutory formulas in 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53. 
This document also allocates the remainder of Capital Investment Grant 
funding to projects. FTA has posted tables displaying the funds 
available to eligible states and urbanized areas on FTA's Web site at 
http://www.fta.dot.gov/apportionments. FTA will issue a supplemental 
notice at a later date when additional contract authority becomes 
available.
    The formula apportionment tables that allocate approximately 83 
percent of FY 2015 appropriated funds can be found at http://www.fta.dot.gov/apportionments. In addition, the National Transit 
Database (NTD) and Census Data used in the funding formulas can be 
found at http://www.fta.dot.gov/apportionments. FTA's tables include 
the following revisions to incorporate updated NTD data or to correct 
for errors incurred in the tables published on February 9, 2015:
    A. The Small Transit Intensive Cities (STIC) calculations include 
updated NTD data that includes an additional STIC factor for the 
Flagstaff Urbanized Area.
    B. The Tribal Transit Formula calculations include updated NTD data 
that has a revised vehicle revenue miles amount for the Southern Ute 
tribe.
    C. The Section 5307 Urbanized Area Formula calculations have been 
updated to correct for STIC funding allocated to urbanized areas 
spanning multiple states where STIC funds were incorrectly attributed 
to the respective states.
    D. The Section 5337 State of Good Repair High Intensity Fixed 
Guideway Tier calculations have been updated to

[[Page 43833]]

correct for an error in the NTD data used in the February 9 table. That 
table used data on Directional Route Miles (DRM) that was used in the 
FY 2014 apportionment calculations. NTD data is updated annually and 
the supplemental apportionment table uses the DRM associated with the 
FY 2015 apportionments.
    Stakeholders with questions or those who are seeking additional 
information on these corrections can contact David Schneider with FTA's 
Division of Grants Management at 202-493-0175.

II. Grant Management and Application Procedures

    A. The Transportation Electronic Awards Management (TEAM) system 
will close on Friday, September 25, 2015. Grants and cooperative 
agreements must have all applicable assurances and certifications 
completed so that funds can be awarded by the deadline. Funding that 
has not been awarded in an application by September 25, 2015 will not 
be migrated into the new FTA financial system, TrAMS. Instead, these 
applications will need to be re-created when TrAMS deploys in FY 2016. 
This applies to new applications as well as amendments to existing 
awards.
    B. In an effort to streamline grant processing, assuming the full 
year 2015 budget level will become available, grantees may now create 
an application using an estimated full FY 2015 amount with the 
appropriate scopes and activity line items when developing project 
budgets. The project budget should reflect the precise activities for 
which the grant funds will be used. FTA will then send grants to the 
Department of Labor (DOL) for certification of the use of the estimated 
full year funds. FTA will then make a grant based on the funding 
currently available. Subsequently, when additional funding becomes 
available, grantees can amend grants and FTA will send the amended 
grants to DOL for information only, since the grantee previously will 
have received a certification. For additional grant application 
procedures please see section V.F. of the FY 2015 Apportionments notice 
published in the Federal Register at http://www.fta.dot.gov/apportionments.
    C. Recipients of open American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) 
grants should be aware that, as a matter of law, all remaining ARRA 
funds MUST be disbursed from grants by the end of the 5th fiscal year 
(FY) after funds were required to be obligated. (SEE 31 U.S.C. 1552.) 
For FTA ARRA projects, that requirement takes affect at the end of FY 
2015. Accordingly, once FTA's ECHO grant payment system closes for 
disbursements on September 25, 2015, all remaining funds within FTA 
ARRA funded grants will no longer be available to the grantee and will 
be deobligated from the grant and returned to the U.S. Treasury. Even 
if a grantee has incurred costs or disbursed funds prior to the close 
of ECHO, if the grantee has not actually drawn down the funds by 2:00 
p.m. EDT on September 25, 2015 FTA would be unable to reimburse the 
grantee. Therefore, grantees with open ARRA grants must ensure project 
activities are completed and all funds are drawdown before by 2:00 p.m. 
EDT on September 25, 2015. For ARRA TIGER 1 projects, the same 
requirement will be in effect for the end of FY 2016.

Therese McMillan,
Acting Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2015-18062 Filed 7-22-15; 8:45 am]
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