GDOT transit grants frozen by FTA

Financial management at the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) was found by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to be so worm-riddled that the federal agency froze transit grants to the state, according to an FTA report obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Among the many problems with GDOT’s handling of federal grants to smaller and rural transit operations was a Georgia grant that funded a bus route that never stopped in Georgia.

GDOT allegedly employed a financial system that used the wrong kind of accounting to calculate time periods for reporting.

The state agency also apparently failed to review the documentation for reimbursement requests.

“In recent years we have not done a good job of managing this program,” GDOT spokesman David Spear told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We acknowledge that; we regret it; and we are fixing it.”

A spokesman for the FTA said unfreezing GDOT’s grants depended on the state’s submitting a satisfactory action plan. The state has already filed a plan, and GDOT’s Spear said the freeze would probably be lifted after a meeting on Friday.

The FTA did not review GDOT’s management of grants to the state’s big transit systems, such as the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority.