Mass Transit Grants

UMTA Needs to Improve Procurement Monitoring at Local Transit Authority Gao ID: RCED-89-94 March 31, 1989

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the Urban Mass Transportation Administration's (UMTA) oversight of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority's (SEPTA) procurement operations.

GAO found that: (1) an UMTA-hired independent consultant concluded that SEPTA procurement practices did not comply with federal requirements; (2) SEPTA established a task force to address problems the consultant identified, including lack of autonomy, inadequate written procedures, and competition restriction; and (3) UMTA planned to continue conducting pre-award reviews of proposed SEPTA contracts and will require SEPTA to report on its corrective actions. GAO also found that UMTA did not adequately monitor SEPTA procurement operations, since it: (1) lacked adequate documentation to show that it conducted appropriate analyses and pre-award reviews of proposed SEPTA procurements; (2) limited its pre-award reviews to ensuring that SEPTA submitted the required supporting documentation and written justifications; (3) approved proposed procurements on the basis of the specific contract and did not review procurements for compliance with other procurement requirements; (4) concluded, from a triennial review that did not focus on procurement practices, that SEPTA maintained a competitive procurement system; and (5) did not require SEPTA annual audits to report on compliance with its procurement requirements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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