Department of Transportation

Over the past several years, the Department of Transportation (DOT) has increasingly relied on universities to assist it in meeting its research needs. DOT was unable to provide GAO with complete or accurate information on all awards. Consequently, GAO surveyed 206 universities about awards and costs and found that 141 institutions had received $190 million in new awards directly from DOT during fiscal years 1991 through 1993. Sixty-three percent of the reported awards included overhead costs. For these awards, 20 percent of the total funds went for overhead. During the same period, Congress earmarked $178 million in DOT funds to 46 universities or university-related facilities; DOT had obligated about $110 million as of September 1993. DOT's planning for university research is diverse and fragmented and is not pursued through an integrated plan. In addition, although DOT has several systems to track spending on its awards, none of them provide complete or accurate information on the total number or purpose of university awards. DOT has provided limited financial oversight of awards to universities. GAO identified several cases in which DOT allowed overcharges or questionable costs that could total nearly $500,000. In addition, GAO discovered that the lack of oversight has resulted in grantee noncompliance with cost-sharing arrangements totaling almost $3 million.

GAO found that: (1) during FY 1991 through 1993, 141 universities received 608 awards from DOT totalling $190 million; (2) 63 percent of the awards included overhead costs that totalled 20 percent of the total funds; (3) Congress earmarked $178 million in DOT funds to 46 universities or related facilities, of which DOT had obligated $110 million as of September 30, 1993; (4) DOT investment in university research activities has increased 470 percent from FY 1988 through 1993; (5) DOT cannot ensure that its research contracts contribute to advancing technology or that it does not fund duplicative and unnecessary research, since its planning for research activities is diverse and fragmented; (6) although DOT has several systems to track award spending, the systems do not provide complete and accurate information on the total number or purpose of university research awards; (7) as recommended by the National Performance Review, DOT is developing an integrated national transportation research and development plan; (8) DOT is considering developing a centralized database to track its university research projects; and (9) DOT has provided limited financial oversight of its university awards, which has resulted in inadequate management control of the award process, overcharges and questionable costs, and grantees' noncompliance with cost-sharing arrangements.

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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