In September 2013, the Government Accountability Office began a review of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) implementation of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) discretionary grant program. Yesterday GAO issued a management report stating that the DOT should take various steps to improve the documentation of key decisions made in evaluating grant applications and selecting projects during the sixth round of the program. Specifically, DOT did not document key decisions to
- Accept and review applications received after the published deadline
- Advance projects with lower technical ratings instead of more highly-rated projects
- Utilize procedures inconsistent with DOT's internal guidelines
- Change the technical ratings of lower-rated projects selected for funding to the highest technical rating category
GAO recommended that DOT establish additional accountability measures for management of the TIGER program including clear procedures for addressing late-arriving applications and for documenting and approving major decisions in the application evaluation and project selection process.
