Federal Assistance System Should Be Changed To Permit Greater Involvement by State Legislatures

State legislative involvement in the federal grant process is discouraged by the restrictive nature of the system itself, and by specific provisions in federal grant programs which assign legislative responsibilities to the state executive branch. An assessment was made of the role of state legislatures in reviewing and controlling Federal grant funds received by the states.

Many state legislatures have been discouraged from becoming involved in the allocation or oversight of federal grant funds because of their perception that they have no legitimate role. The absence of state legislative involvement adversely affects federal interests, since neutrality may be impaired when explicit functions are assigned to only one branch of state government without adequate recognition of the other branch. In addition, federal constraints on legislative responsibility work to diminish the most basic form of accountability in state government, the legislative oversight of executive actions. Prospects for full state support and implementation of grant programs also suffer when legislatures are not involved in the programs. Despite federal discouragement, some legislatures have involved themselves in various federal grant programs. Contrary to expectations, legislative involvement has produced generally beneficial results, without causing delays or the loss of available grant funds. Enhancing the accountability of federal programs to traditional state representative institutions enhances the long-range interests of federal grant programs. Where state legislative involvement has been achieved, it has demonstrated that it clearly supports legitimate federal interests. GAO believes that the primary responsibility for initiating legislative involvement must come from within the states themselves.

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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