Welfare Reform: Implementing DOT's Access to Jobs' Program in Its First
Year (Letter Report, 11/26/1999, GAO/RCED-00-14).
Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO provided information on the
Access to Jobs and Reverse Commute program, which provides grants to
improve transportation to employment for welfare recipients, focusing on
the: (1) Department of Transportation's (DOT) implementation of the Job
Access program, particularly its approach for selecting awards in fiscal
year (FY) 1999; (2) FY 1999 grantees and their planned approaches for
providing transportation services to low-income workers; and (3) changes
DOT is making to the program in response to GAO's prior recommendations,
including the establishment of specific objectives, performance
criteria, and measurable goals for evaluating the program's success.
GAO noted that: (1) as required by the Transportation Equity Act for the
21st Century (TEA-21), DOT established and implemented a process for
competitively selecting Job Access grantees; (2) DOT selected 179
grantees from 266 applications and awarded almost $71 million of the $75
million provided for the Job Access program for FY 1999; (3) DOT did not
select grantees consistently, and the basis for those selections was not
always clear; (4) reviewers did not uniformly apply the criteria for
ranking and selecting the applications because applications were not
standardized, making them difficult to review; (5) the guidance to DOT
reviewers was not sufficiently specific, leading to varying
interpretations of how to apply DOT's criteria for ranking and selecting
the applications; (6) DOT officials said that this was a new program and
that they designed the process to select applicants based on
legislatively established criteria; (7) DOT agreed on the need to
improve the process for ranking and selecting applications; (8) DOT
plans to develop a standard application format and to revise the process
for ranking and selecting applications for FY 2000; (9) about 67 percent
of the grantees in the first year of the Job Access program were
traditional transportation organizations, such as metropolitan transit
agencies; (10) according to a DOT official, some nontraditional
organizations were involved in designing the selected projects and are
involved in their implementation; (11) DOT officials awarded selection
points to applicants who demonstrated that, in designing a project, they
included nontraditional organizations, such as human service agencies,
employers, and metropolitan planning agencies; (12) most grantees plan
to rely primarily on providing links to existing transit or providing
other transportation assistance; (13) DOT concurred with the three
recommendations that GAO made in May 1998; (14) DOT has implemented two
of them and is still determining how to address the third; (15) DOT has
coordinated with other federal agencies, as called for in TEA-21, by
establishing and participating in interagency councils and working
groups and by issuing guidelines jointly with other agencies; (16) DOT
ranked the grant applicants for FY 1999, in part, on the basis of the
level of coordination established with local agencies that serve various
communities; (17) DOT is still determining how to evaluate the Job
Access program; and (18) DOT has not yet developed a complete set of
specific objectives, performance criteria, and measurable goals for
evaluating the program.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: RCED-00-14
TITLE: Welfare Reform: Implementing DOT's Access to Jobs' Program
in Its First Year
DATE: 11/26/1999
SUBJECT: Workfare
Performance measures
Federal aid for transportation
Transportation operations
Public assistance programs
Intergovernmental relations
Federal grants
Grant administration
Eligibility criteria
IDENTIFIER: DOT Access to Jobs Program
Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program
AFDC Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to Congressional Committees
November 1999
WELFARE REFORM - IMPLEMENTING
DOT'S ACCESS TO JOBS PROGRAM IN
ITS FIRST YEAR
GAO/RCED-00-14
Welfare Reform
(348175)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
DOT - Department of Transportation
FTA - Federal Transit Administration
TEA-21 - Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century
TANF - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-283299
November 26, 1999
The Honorable Phil Gramm
Chairman
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
United States Senate
The Honorable Bud Shuster
Chairman
The Honorable James L. Oberstar
Ranking Democratic Member
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
House of Representatives
To transition welfare recipients to employment, it is important to
provide them with transportation to the workplace. Three-fourths of
welfare recipients live in central cities or rural areas, while
two-thirds of the new jobs are located in the suburbs. Many of these
new jobs are in areas with limited or no public transportation
systems and are accessible primarily by car.\1 However, many welfare
recipients do not have cars. To address this mismatch, the
Transportation Equity Act for the 21\st Century (TEA-21) authorized
the Access to Jobs and Reverse Commute (Job Access) program. The
program authorizes the Department of Transportation (DOT) to provide
grants to local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and transit
authorities, among others, to improve transportation to employment.
Within DOT, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is responsible
for implementing the program. TEA-21 authorized up to $750 million
for fiscal years 1999 through 2003 to implement the program.
TEA-21 requires us to review the Job Access program every 6 months.
This report describes (1) DOT's implementation of the Job Access
program, particularly its approach for selecting awards in fiscal
year 1999; (2) the fiscal year 1999 grantees and their planned
approaches for providing transportation services to low-income
workers; and (3) the changes DOT is making to the program in response
to our prior recommendations, including the establishment of specific
objectives, performance criteria, and measurable goals for evaluating
the program's success.
--------------------
\1 The need for transportation services to move people from welfare
to work is discussed in Welfare Reform: Transportation's Role in
Moving From Welfare to Work (GAO/RCED-98-161, May 29, 1998).
RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
As required by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21\st Century,
DOT established and implemented a process for competitively selecting
Job Access grantees. DOT selected 179 grantees from 266 applications
and awarded almost $71 million of the $75 million provided for the
Job Access program for fiscal year 1999. However, DOT did not select
grantees consistently, and the basis for those selections was not
always clear. Reviewers did not uniformly apply the criteria for
ranking and selecting the applications because applications were not
standardized, making them difficult to review. In addition, the
guidance to DOT reviewers was not sufficiently specific, leading to
varying interpretations of how to apply DOT's criteria for ranking
and selecting the applications. DOT officials said that this was a
new program and that they designed the process to select applicants
based on legislatively established criteria. However, they agreed on
the need to improve the process for ranking and selecting
applications. In this regard, they plan to develop a standard
application format and to revise the process for ranking and
selecting applications for fiscal year 2000.
About 67 percent of the grantees in the first year of the Job Access
program were traditional transportation organizations, such as
metropolitan transit agencies. According to a DOT official, some
nontraditional organizations were involved in designing the selected
projects and are involved in their implementation. DOT officials
awarded selection points to applicants who demonstrated that, in
designing a project, they included nontraditional organizations, such
as human service agencies, employers, and metropolitan planning
agencies. Most grantees plan to rely primarily on expanding or
providing links to existing transit to meet the identified needs in
their areas. Many grantees also plan to provide other transportation
assistance, such as informing welfare recipients about how to use
existing transportation systems.
DOT concurred with the three recommendations that we made in May
1998.\2 It has implemented two of them and is still determining how
to address the third. First, we recommended that DOT coordinate with
other federal agencies in implementing welfare-to-work programs. In
response, DOT has coordinated with other federal agencies, as called
for in TEA-21, by establishing and participating in interagency
councils and working groups and by issuing guidelines jointly with
other agencies. Second, we recommended that in its welfare-to-work
initiatives, DOT require collaboration among local organizations.
DOT ranked the grant applicants for fiscal year 1999, in part, on the
basis of this level of coordination with local agencies that serve
various communities. Third, we recommended that DOT establish
specific objectives, performance criteria, and measurable goals for
evaluating the program. DOT is still determining how to evaluate the
Job Access program. It has not yet developed a complete set of
specific objectives, performance criteria, and measurable goals for
evaluating the program.
--------------------
\2 See GAO/RCED-98-161.
BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
of 1996 dramatically altered the nation's system for providing
assistance to the poor. Among the many changes, the act replaced the
existing entitlement program for poor families (Aid to Families With
Dependent Children) with fixed block grants to the states to provide
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). TANF imposes work
requirements on adults and establishes time limits on the receipt of
federal assistance. However, for welfare recipients trying to move
from welfare to work, a lack of transportation to the places of
employment can pose significant barriers. Existing public
transportation systems cannot always transport low-income people from
their homes to the entry-level jobs they would likely fill. Many of
these jobs are located in suburbs beyond the reach of public
transportation, or they require shift work in the evenings or on
weekends when public transportation is unavailable or limited.
To help address this lack of transportation, TEA-21\3 established the
Job Access program. In implementing the program, DOT provides grants
to local agencies, nonprofit organizations, and transit authorities,
among others, to improve mobility for low-income individuals seeking
employment. TEA-21 authorized up to $150 million each year through
fiscal year 2003 for the Job Access program. The Department of
Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Acts for fiscal
years 1999 and 2000 each provided $75 million for the program.\4
TEA-21 also required DOT to allocate 60 percent of the program's
funds each year to projects in urban areas with populations of at
least 200,000; 20 percent of the program's funds to projects in urban
areas with populations of less than 200,000; and 20 percent of the
program's funds to projects in areas other than urban ones (nonurban
areas).\5
TEA-21 required the Secretary of Transportation to solicit grant
applications nationwide and to select grant recipients competitively.
The Secretary must consider several factors when reviewing and
selecting grant applications. To select grants for fiscal year 1999,
DOT synthesized these factors into four criteria that applicants had
to address. In examining the applications, DOT reviewers could
assign up to 110 points, and each criterion was weighted by its
relative importance. The criteria were (1) the degree of local
coordination when a project was being designed, 25 points; (2) an
area's need for services, 30 points; (3) a project's effectiveness in
providing job access services, 35 points; and (4) the sustainability
of a project's financing--defined as the ability to obtain funding
after the termination of Job Access funding--10 points. DOT could
award up to 10 bonus points for innovative approaches (such as the
use of geographic information systems to identify available
transportation), links to employment support services, and
employer-based strategies (such as employer-run shuttles). According
to its program guidance, DOT also considered other factors, including
the schedule for implementing a project, the extent to which the Job
Access program's funds remained available for awarding to
lower-ranked applications after the highest-ranked applications were
selected, and the geographic distribution of grants throughout the
country.
--------------------
\3 P.L. 105-178.
\4 The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2000
appropriation specifically provided for approximately $50 million in
funding to individual projects.
\5 Areas other than urban ones are those with populations of less
than 50,000. These areas include small towns and rural areas.
DOT'S PROCESS FOR RANKING AND
SELECTING APPLICATIONS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
As required by TEA-21, DOT established and implemented a process to
competitively select grantees for the Job Access program. DOT
selected 179 grantees from 266 applications and awarded almost $71
million of the $75 million provided for fiscal year 1999. However,
the process was not always consistent, and the basis for those
selections was not always clear.
According to DOT officials, in establishing a process to review Job
Access applications, DOT provided grant reviewers with a guide that
contained a number of factors to be considered when scoring each of
the four selection criteria. They said that when FTA's regional
offices conducted the initial reviews, individual reviewers assigned
a numerical score to each project that was based on the weighted
score for each criterion. According to DOT officials, the leaders of
headquarters teams then converted the scores of multiple reviewers
into a high, medium, or low rating for each criterion, and the
headquarters review teams performed additional reviews. Then, the
leaders of the headquarters teams made recommendations to the FTA
Administrator to fund or not to fund projects.\6 Specifically,
projects ranked 4 or 5 were highly recommended for funding with
few or no stipulated corrective actions needed, projects ranked 3
were deemed marginal but eligible for funding, and those ranked 1
or 2 were not recommended for funding because of major deficiencies
or because they were not responsive to the grant requirements. The
FTA Administrator selected for funding all the projects that the FTA
staff ranked 4 or 5, 7 of the 30 projects ranked 3, and none of
those ranked 1 or 2.
While this process was used, the proposals were not selected in a
consistent fashion, and the basis for some selections was unclear.
This inconsistency occurred because the information supplied by
applicants varied in detail and quality and the guidance to DOT's
reviewers on how to review and rank the applications was not specific
enough to ensure consistent results. Although DOT officials
attempted to minimize the variations among application reviews, they
stated that the ranking and selection process needed to be improved.
On the basis of their experience from the first year of the program,
the officials plan to standardize the application format to ensure
that applicants provide more consistent data in their grant
applications. Also, DOT plans to revise the process for ranking and
selecting applications to ensure more consistent results when grants
are awarded for fiscal year 2000.
According to DOT officials, the grant applications for fiscal year
1999 varied greatly in length and format, making the reviews very
time-consuming. According to these officials, while most of the
applications addressed the criteria that DOT used to review them,
some were formatted in a manner that made them difficult to review.
For example, one applicant provided extensive information about the
decline of the industrial base in the state, which, in the view of
DOT officials, was not necessary to document a need for job access
services. Nevertheless, the reviewers had to examine and synthesize
the voluminous documentation. Other applicants did not provide such
extensive information about changes in the economies of their states.
Another difficulty, according to these officials, was that the
guidance given to reviewers was not detailed enough to ensure
consistent scoring. Thus, there were some wide variations in the
review results. For example, some reviewers scored one application
as being of medium quality in meeting one criterion and low in
three other criteria, while other reviewers scored the same
application as medium in one criterion and high for the others.
DOT officials said they designed the award process to select
applicants based on the criteria established in TEA-21. DOT
officials said that they converted the initial numerical scores to
the qualitative scores to minimize the variation in the scores for
individual applications. They explained that some initial reviewers
had scored applications more conservatively than others had and that
converting the initial numerical scores to qualitative scores was an
attempt to equalize the reviews performed by different staff.
However, this effort was not entirely successful, and DOT officials
could not demonstrate how numerical scores were directly and
consistently converted to the qualitative scores. For example, a
score of 24 out of 35 was considered high or medium in one case,
while a score of 17 was considered high or medium in another
case.
DOT officials also could not consistently demonstrate how
applications' overall rankings (1 through 5) were determined from the
qualitative scores for each of the criteria. For example, an
application from a city that DOT classified as medium-sized with
qualitative scores of medium in all categories received a low overall
ranking. However, another application in the medium-sized group had
the same qualitative scores but was given a higher overall ranking.
Similar inconsistencies existed in the scores and selections of
applications for urban and nonurban areas.
After DOT had selected the applications with the highest overall
rankings, program officials decided to use some of the remaining
fiscal year 1999 funds for other lower-ranked applications. Staff
reviewers recommended that DOT fund some of these lower-ranked
applications because they considered those applications to represent
viable projects. However, DOT management officials did not always
select those applications recommended by the staff reviewers.
Moreover, in some cases, DOT management officials selected other
applications with lower qualitative scores. For example, two
applications from medium-sized cities received the same overall
ranking, but DOT funded the applicant with lower qualitative scores.
According to FTA's deputy administrator, DOT decided to fund some
applications with lower rankings to serve Native American tribal
communities and to provide greater geographic balance in awarding
grants.
DOT officials told us that this is a new program and that the ranking
and selection process needs to be improved. For fiscal year 2000,
they plan to make several changes to the process, including (1)
standardizing the application format to ensure that applicants
provide all the required information, thus helping to eliminate the
submission of unneeded information and helping to speed DOT's
reviews, and (2) developing a uniform application review process to
promote greater consistency in the selections. DOT will also
eliminate the awarding of bonus points. Instead, when ranking and
selecting applications for fiscal year 2000, DOT will consider
innovative approaches to providing services, along with the
geographic dispersion of the grantees, as an additional factor.
--------------------
\6 These recommendations were contained in project summaries that
also included written justifications and any stipulated corrective
actions that were required for funding to proceed.
JOB ACCESS PROGRAM FUNDED
TRADITIONAL TRANSPORTATION
AGENCIES AND APPROACHES
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4
The grantees for the Job Access program's first year were primarily
traditional transportation agenciesfor example, the Washington
(D.C.) Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the Chicago Transit
Authority. A DOT official said he was not surprised at the
predominance of these entities because, in his view, meeting the
requirements generally applicable to federal transit grantees is
difficult for nontraditional organizations. The grantees plan to use
and expand their traditional and existing transit services to
transport welfare recipients and the working poor to places of
employment.
JOB ACCESS GRANTEES ARE
TYPICALLY TRADITIONAL
TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES, BUT
OTHER AGENCIES ARE ALSO
INVOLVED
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.1
Existing transportation organizations submitted 170 of the 266
applications for Job Access grants in fiscal year 1999. Transit
organizations also accounted for 122 of the 181 grant awards that DOT
made for fiscal year 1999.\7 Thirteen grantees were smaller community
organizations, such as the African American Leadership Partnership in
Chicago and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation in the
Oakland area. The balance of the grantees included various
government entities, such as the Chicago Housing Authority and DuPage
County, Illinois.\8
A DOT official said that he was not surprised that the Department had
received so many applications from traditional transit organizations.
The nontraditional organizations are often included in consolidated
applications. DOT encouraged consolidated applications and awarded
points based on the extent to which applicants utilized existing
transportation service providers. According to a DOT program
official, relying primarily on traditional transit organizations to
provide job access services may help prevent difficulties that
nontraditional entities would face in meeting the requirements
associated with federal transit grants. According to some grantees,
these requirements are complex, time-consuming, and costly to meet,
especially if a grantee does not have the structure to meet those
requirements. Specifically, some grantees said it would be difficult
to satisfy the requirements involving participation by disadvantaged
business enterprises,\9 labor protection arrangements, and drug
testing. For example, one grantee plans to use taxicabs to transport
an apartment complex's residents to work during late-hour shifts when
other transportation options are not available. Grantee officials
said that they believe it will be difficult to contract with a taxi
company that will pay for drug and alcohol testing for all of its
drivers, while getting only a relatively small increase in business
from the grantee.
According to a DOT program official, although most grantees are
traditional transit agencies, nontraditional organizations were
involved in designing the grantees' projects and are involved in
their implementation. Specifically, DOT awarded selection points to
applicants that demonstrated that in designing a project, they had
included various transportation providers and others, such as human
service agencies, employers, metropolitan planning organizations,
states, communities, and individuals. In addition, some traditional
agencies that are grantees will fund the efforts of nontraditional
organizations that provide service directly to beneficiaries. For
example, one urban transit agency will ultimately distribute funds to
seven projects in its area, including one planned by a local
community organization and another planned by the local public
housing authority.
--------------------
\7 The total of 181 grantees referred to here is greater than the
total of 179 grantees that initially received awards because DOT
broke some of the applications into separate grants when it made the
final awards.
\8 See app. I, table I.1 for specific information on the types of
grantees.
\9 Under DOT's disadvantaged business enterprise program, certain
grantees are required to establish programs with goals for
participation by small business concerns owned and controlled by
socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
GRANTEES PLAN TO RELY ON A
VARIETY OF TRADITIONAL TYPES
OF TRANSIT
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :4.2
The grantees plan to use a variety of traditional approaches to meet
the transportation needs of low-income workers.\10 The most prevalent
approach to providing transportation, planned by over 50 percent of
the grantees, relies to some extent on existing transit services,
such as buses or trains. Many of these grantees plan to expand
existing transit service by extending the hours of service on an
existing route or increasing the locations reached by existing
transit lines. For example, one grantee plans to double the
frequency of fixed-route service through a low-income section of
town.
Grantees also plan to provide a variety of nontraditional
transportation and other services. Grantees plan to use vans,
shuttles, and demand-responsive methods\11 to transport people to and
from their jobs or to and from their homes to existing transit lines.
Although some grantees plan to provide transportation only to and
from work, many grantees plan to provide other servicesfor example,
providing guaranteed rides home to help program beneficiaries meet
emergency child care responsibilities. One grantee is planning to
provide transportation vouchers to the program's beneficiaries that
can be used for these responsibilities. In addition to transporting
program beneficiaries, 57 grantees plan to provide some sort of
transportation information to them. For example, one grantee plans
to develop a Traveler Information System that will inform
beneficiaries about how to access fixed route and shuttle services.
Other examples are grantees' employing a transportation coordinator
or promoting expanded transportation services.
--------------------
\10 See app. I, table I.2 for information on the specific types of
transportation that grantees plan to provide.
\11 Demand-responsive methods transport passengers, via cars, vans,
or buses, in a flexible fashion, when passengers call to be taken to
their destinations. They do not operate over a fixed route or on a
fixed time schedule.
DOT HAS TAKEN ACTIONS IN
RESPONSE TO OUR PRIOR
RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE JOB
ACCESS PROGRAM
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :5
In May 1998, we made three recommendations to the Secretary of
Transportation about the implementation of the Job Access program.
First, we recommended that the Secretary coordinate DOT's
welfare-to-work activities with those of other federal agencies, as
called for in TEA-21. Second, we recommended that the Secretary
require grant recipients to coordinate their transportation
strategies with local job placement and other social service
agencies. TEA-21 requires that, in awarding grants, DOT consider the
extent to which an applicant demonstrates that it has consulted with
the community to be served. Because grantees can use other federal
funds to match the Job Access grants, sustained coordination among
DOT, other federal agencies, and local agencies is important in
ensuring the effective use of welfare-to-work funds. Third, we
recommended that the Secretary establish specific objectives,
performance criteria, and measurable goals for the Job Access
program.\12 Implementing this recommendation is important for DOT to
ascertain the extent to which the program assists welfare recipients
and to avoid duplicating other federal and state welfare programs.
Moreover, TEA-21 required DOT to evaluate the program and report to
the Congress by June 2000.
DOT agreed with our first recommendation that the Secretary of
Transportation coordinate DOT's welfare-to-work activities with those
of other federal agencies. At DOT's invitation, executive-level
representatives of the departments of Labor and of Health and Human
Services have met with DOT representatives in a policy council to
discuss the implementation of the Job Access program. DOT also
formed interagency working groups to ensure that the Job Access
program complements other federal programs. Moreover, in May 1998,
before the Job Access program was authorized, and again in December
1998, the Secretaries of those departments issued joint guidance to
states and localities, describing how the departments' programs could
be used together to implement transportation strategies under welfare
reform.\13 These measures are intended to help the Job Access program
avoid duplicating other transportation programs, among other things.
DOT also agreed with our second recommendation that it require Job
Access grantees to coordinate their transportation strategies with
local job placement and other social service agencies. Among the
steps it took in response, DOT required the Job Access grant
applicants to submit projects that were based on regional planning
processes that included representatives from both transit and social
service providers, such as local job placement agencies. DOT
assessed those grant applications based on the extent of this local
coordination.
As for our third recommendation, DOT officials recognized the need
for a plan that has specific objectives, performance criteria, and
measurable goals to evaluate the program's success. However, DOT has
not yet designed and implemented the plan. In the interim, DOT has
adopted a goal of increasing the number of new employment sites that
the Job Access program will make accessible. In addition, DOT
notified grantees that it expects them to monitor the performance of
their projects and to report such information as (1) the number of
transportation services a Job Access project added, (2) how a project
improved the accessibility of jobs and support services in a target
area, and (3) the number of people using a project's expanded
services. However, DOT has not yet established goals or benchmarks
against which these collected data can be compared. Therefore, the
data alone are not sufficient to measure the program's overall
performance or success.
--------------------
\12 GAO/RCED-98-161.
\13 See Transportation Coordination: Benefits and Barriers Exist and
Planning Efforts Progress Slowly (GAO/RCED-00-1, Oct. 22, 1999). In
1986, the Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Transportation
established a Coordinating Council on Human Services Transportation,
consisting of representatives from their departments. As stated in
this report, we found that the Council needs to be strengthened.
Specifically, although for several years the two departments have
been drafting a strategic plan for the Council, it is unclear when
any of the plan's proposed tasks will be undertaken.
AGENCY COMMENTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :6
We provided the Department of Transportation with a draft of this
report for review and comment. We met with FTA officials, including
the Director of the Office of Research Management and the Coordinator
of the Job Access program. The Department agreed with the findings
of our report and provided a number of clarifying and technical
suggestions that we incorporated as appropriate. For example, the
Department suggested that we include more information about the
process that it used to select and rank applications from prospective
grantees. The Department also clarified the dates on which it, along
with other agencies, had issued guidelines to states and localities
describing how these agencies' programs could be used together to
implement transportation strategies under welfare reform.
SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :7
To obtain information on how DOT has implemented the Job Access
program, we interviewed FTA officials and examined documentation,
internal reports, grant applications, and other descriptive materials
about the program. To identify the grantees and how they plan to use
the Job Access funds, we reviewed documents that summarized the
projects. We also interviewed some of the grantees. To determine
the steps taken by DOT to evaluate the Job Access program, we
interviewed FTA officials and reviewed relevant documentation. We
performed our review from May through November 1999 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.1
We are sending copies of this report to the cognizant congressional
committees; Rodney E. Slater, Secretary of Transportation; Gordon J.
Linton, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration; and other
interested parties. We will make copies available to others upon
request.
If you have any questions about this report, please call me at (202)
512-2834. Key contributors to this report were Ruthann Balciunas,
Catherine Colwell, Eric Diamant, Ernie Hazera, and Frank Taliaferro.
Phyllis F. Scheinberg
Associate Director,
Transportation Issues
DESCRIPTION OF GRANTEES AND TYPE
OF PLANNED SERVICES
=========================================================== Appendix I
Of the 266 Job Access applications for fiscal year 1999, 64 percent
(170 applications) were submitted by transportation organizations.
Sixty-seven percent of the grantees (122 of the 181 grantees) were
transportation organizations. These transportation organizations
included state departments of transportation and entities that
typically receive Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grants, such
as the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. In addition,
community organizations, such as Change Inc., Project Renewal, and
the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, constituted 11 percent of the
applicants and 7 percent of the grantees. The remaining 24 percent
of the applicants and 27 percent of the grantees were planning
organizations (including metropolitan planning organizations),
government agencies (including counties and cities), and human
service organizations (for example, public housing authorities and
state social service agencies). See table I.1 for specific numbers
and percentages.
Table I.1
Types of Organizations Applying for and
Receiving Job Access Grants
Percentage
Number of of Percentage
applicatio applicatio Number of of
Type of grantee ns ns grantees grantees
---------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
Transportation 170 64 122 67
organizations
Community 30 11 13 7
organizations
Planning organizations 22 8 16 9
Government entities 21 8 18 10
Human service 19 7 12 7
organizations
Employer-sponsored 1 0 0 0
organizations
Information not 3 1 1 1
available
======================================================================
Total 266 99\a 181\b 100
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\a Percentages do not add to 100 because of rounding.
\b The total of 181 grantees is greater than the 179 grantees that
initially received awards because DOT broke up some of the
applications into separate grants as the final projects were
approved.
In some cases, although one agency had been designated as an
applicant for a number of projects, the development of the project or
projects involved a number of different organizations. For example,
the Maryland Department of Transportation served as the applicant for
15 projects around the state. However, the Department had held
several regional meetings throughout the state to involve different
types of organizations, including employers and public agencies, in
developing projects and applying for grants.
In addition, the 181 Job Access grantees are planning to provide a
wide variety of transportation services to meet the needs identified
in their areas. Ninety-three plan to extend current transit service
by providing services on weekends or during evening hours or to new
employment sites, and 78 plan to provide new service.\1 In addition,
34 grantees are planning to implement transportation services that
are provided as needed (demand-responsive services), as opposed to
operating transit vehicles on fixed schedules or routes. Also, 75 of
the project summaries state that the grantees plan to use vans or
shuttles to provide service. See table I.2 for the types of
transportation that the grantees plan to provide.
Table I.2
Grantees' Planned Services
Number of Percentage of
Service description grantees grantees
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Transportation approa
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Fixed route extension (frequency or 93 51
location)
New service 78 43
Demand-responsive service 34 19
Connection to existing service 25 14
Transportation mode