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GAO-01-985R 1 (2001-08-31)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaalvi0001 and id is 1 raw text is: I A&GAO iAccountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 August 17, 2001 The Honorable Harold Rogers Chairman, Subcommittee on Transportation Committee on Appropriations House of Representatives Subject: Highway Projects: Extent of Unobligated Balances for Demonstration Projects Dear Mr. Chairman: Congress has provided funding for numerous highway demonstration projects in legislation authorizing surface transportation programs as well as in annual appropriations acts for the Department of Transportation (DOT). In some cases, the projects are identified in the legislation itself. In others, they are identified in committee reports accompanying the legislation, or by DOT. These projects are all designated for specific locations within states and for specific purposes, and funds made available for them generally remain available until expended. In order to identify funds that could be rescinded, you asked us to identify (1) highway demonstration projects with unobligated balances that are no longer needed and (2) the amount of these balances. Results As of April, 2001, there were 28 highway demonstration projects with unobligated balances that are no longer needed by the states because, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the projects are completed. These projects accounted for about $14.6 million in unobligated funds. These funds were provided in authorization or appropriations acts enacted from 1976 through 1994. The enclosure specifies the budget authority made available and the obligated and unobligated amounts for each of the projects as of April 2001, lists the statute(s) and committee report(s) identifying the projects, beginning with the most recent, and describes briefly the location and nature of the completed projects. We provided a draft of this information to your staff on July 10, 2001. Public Law 107-20, enacted on July 24, 2001, rescinded approximately $16 million in budget authority made available by the statutes we identified in the enclosure. Our work did not identify the actions FHWA takes to identify completed highway demonstration projects with unobligated balances so that funds associated with them could be rescinded. We intend to follow up on this issue to determine whether FHWA should establish a process for identifying completed projects on a regular basis. Scope and Methodology To identify completed highway demonstration projects with unobligated balances, we analyzed reports from DOT's financial management information system (FMIS) and verified our analysis with FHWA officials. We verified the statutory sources of the projects and their descriptions by reviewing the statutes and associated reports. We GAO-01-985R Highway Projects

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