Federal-aid highways : FHWA has improved its risk management approach, but needs to improve its oversight of project costs : report to congressional requesters.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

United States. Government Accountability Office

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Federal Highway Administration--Appropriations and expenditures.

United States.

United States. Federal Highway Administration--Risk management.

United States. Federal Highway Administration.

Roads--United States--States--Finance.

Roads.

Federal aid to transportation--United States.

Federal aid to transportation.

Expenditures, Public.

Risk management.

Roads--U.S. states--Finance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ii, 23 pages) : illustrations

Other Title:

FHWA has improved its risk management approach, but needs to improve its oversight of project costs

FHWA oversight

Place of Publication:

[Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Govt. Accountability Office, [2009]

Summary:

The federal-aid highway program provides about 33 billion dollars a year to states for highway projects. The federal government provides funding for and oversees this program, while states largely choose and manage the projects. As requested, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) implementation of several requirements in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU): (1) oversight of states using a risk management approach; (2) efforts to develop minimum standards for estimating project costs, and periodically evaluate states' cost estimating practices; and (3) reviews of states' financial management systems. GAO also reviewed FHWA's policy on presenting an estimate of financing costs in financial plans for major projects (i.e., projects estimated to cost over 500 million dollars). FHWA has improved its approach to managing risks to the federal-aid highway program by requiring field offices to identify risks, assess them on the basis of the potential impact and the likelihood they will occur, and develop response strategies for key risks in their planned oversight activities. For fiscal years 2007 through 2009, most of the field offices GAO visited had oversight activities to address a majority of the key risks. However, most of the field offices that GAO visited were not fully tracking risk mitigation activities, thereby limiting the effectiveness of FHWA's efforts to mitigate risks to the federal-aid highway program.

Notes:

Title from PDF title screen (GAO, viewed Aug. 3, 2009).

"July 2009."

Includes bibliographical references.

"GAO-09-751."

OCLC:

428974624