Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Additional Actions Needed to Strengthen Grants Management

In 2011, GAO reported that since fiscal year 2010, the Federal Motor Carrier Administration (FMCSA) had taken a number of actions to transform its grants management practices, including planning to centralize oversight through a Grants Management Office. However, FMCSA had not conducted a strategic workforce assessment that could help it identify and fill gaps in expertise, as well as support its budget request to staff a Grants Management Office. GAO's internal control standards for control activities maintain agencies should ensure that skill needs are continually assessed and that their workforces have the skills necessary to help the agency meet its goals. GAO has reported that strategic workforce planning is an integral part of human capital management and helps an agency, among other things, determine the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to achieve current and future programmatic results and then develop strategies tailored to address any gaps identified. GAO recommended that FMCSA conduct a strategic grants management workforce planning evaluation in order to better determine its staffing and skill needs for grants management, including an analysis of the needed staff resources for the proposed Grants Management Office. As of October 2013, FMCSA-using using a third party contractor-has completed a strategic grants management workforce planning evaluation. This evaluation included a staffing needs analysis that provided details on the ideal staff levels for the agency's Grants Management Office. FMCSA's evaluation should provide the workforce information the agency needs to determine if it has the staff and skills necessary to effectively manage its grant programs and support the proposed Grants Management Office, or if it requires additional resources as it continues its grants management transformation.

In 2011, GAO reported that one key internal control improvement that FMCSA had made was to standardize and document, in its Grants Management Manual, its grants management policies and procedures, which were inconsistently documented prior to 2010. Among other things, the Manual provided information on the roles and responsibilities of grants management staff in one place. However, the Manual did not sufficiently document the roles and responsibilities of all grants management program staff. For example, grants management positions detailed in the Manual included program manager for the person in headquarters who manages all aspects of a specific grant program. However, there was a single list of roles and responsibilities for staff who manage grants in the field, including field administrators, service center directors, and state program managers. FMCSA officials told us that these individuals have different roles in the field, yet they have a single list of roles and responsibilities. GAO recommended that FMCSA, to further improve grants management policies and procedures, add details regarding staff roles and responsibilities in the Grants Management Manual so that grants management staff could be appropriately informed to manage each program. In April 2013 FMCSA released version three of its Grants Management Manual. This version included details on the roles and responsibilities for all relevant FMCSA grants management staff. As a result, FMCSA staff and management are now better informed as to relevant responsibilities of grants management and are more likely to manage grant programs appropriately.

In 2011, GAO reported that FMCSA did not have a system for management to easily track employee training to ensure that staff complete required grants management training. FMCSA documented required training in employees' individual development plans. Separately, FMCSA's electronic training system listed courses and the names of staff who had completed them. According to FMCSA officials, the training system did not contain information from individual development plans, so it could not identify employees who had not taken certain training courses. As such, FMCSA relied on, but did not require, supervisors to monitor staff training. The absence of a formal, centralized mechanism for tracking staff training increases the risk that a staff's failure to take a required course could go undetected, increasing the risk that staff do not have the knowledge needed to appropriately manage grant awards. GAO recommended that FMCSA work with others in the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to modify its training system to allow management to determine which grants management staff have taken the required training. FMCSA partnered with relevant staff in DOT to modify its training management system. As of October 2013 FMCSA management can check the training histories of designated grants management staff and assign specific grants management related training to those staff. As a result of this modification, FMCSA management can better ensure that grants management staff are equipped to effectively manage grant awards.

In 2011, the Department of Transportation (DOT) determined that from fiscal years 2006 to 2010 the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) had violated federal appropriations statues in awarding some grants for one of its 10 grant programs. This was caused in part by weaknesses in FMCSA's internal controls and may have affected FMCSA's ability to carry out its mission to reduce motor carrier (large truck and bus) accidents and fatalities. In 2011, GAO reported that FMCSA had taken a number of actions since fiscal year 2010 to transform its grants management practices. While these actions helped address some existing internal control weaknesses, some challenges remained. When undergoing such transformations, GAO has previously reported that it is important for agencies to undertake certain practices, which include, among other things, establishing results-oriented goals and a strategy and timeline for tracking performance towards achieving them. One of the challenges FMCSA faced was the agency had not set metrics related to its grants management program or developed a method to measure progress in meeting its grant management goals. Performance metrics could help FMCSA identify the extent to which the changes it is making contribute to reducing the risk for financial or management mistakes. As a result, GAO recommended that FMCSA create a series of measurable grants management goals and objectives and timelines for completing them, as well as a series of metrics to measure meeting those goals and detail these goals and metrics in its Grants Management Program Roadmap, to track progress in meeting the goals, and report to Congress on the agency's progress. FMCSA had laid out its goals, including creating a Grants Management Office and formalizing legal review of grants in the agency's grants management software, in its Grants Management Roadmap. which describes FMCSA's vision for developing a comprehensive program to effectively award and manage the agency's grants. FMCSA set timeframes that it met by meeting these goals by 2015. In addition, transforming grants management is a continuous process and FMCSA's 2016-2021 Grants Management Strategic Plan lays out further goals strengthening internal controls over the life cycle of grant awards. In addition, FMCSA is reporting to Congress on its grant programs as part of complying with the Grants Oversight and New Efficiency Act. As a result of these actions, FMCSA, as well as Congress, can better monitor the continuing improvement of its grants management functions, helping to ensure that such functions are carried out effectively and efficiently.