TEA-21 authorized the Job Access program, through which DOT’s FTA provides grants to “qualified entities”—local agencies, nonprofit organizations, transit authorities, and others—to improve the mobility of welfare recipients and low-income individuals seeking employment.DOT’s two major goals for the program are to (1) provide transportation services in urban, suburban, and rural areas to assist welfare recipients and low-income individuals to gain access to employment opportunities and (2) increase collaboration among such parties as transportation providers, human service agencies, employers, metropolitan planning organizations, states, and communities in providing access to employment. TEA-21 requires DOT to conduct a nationwide solicitation for Job Access grant applications and to select grantees on a competitive basis. TEA-21 also identifies factors for DOT to consider in awarding Job Access grants. These include the percentage of the population in the area to be served by a grant applicant who are welfare recipients, the need for additional services in the area to be served, the extent to which the proposed services would meet that need, and the extent to which an applicant identifies long-term financing strategies to support the services. In fiscal year 1999, FTA established a competitive selection process involving the evaluation of grant applications against published criteria, as well as the scoring and ranking of applications against each other on the basis of those evaluations. FTA selected and funded the highest ranked projects. FTA selects program grantees on an annual basis and makes no commitment for funding for more than 1 year. As a result, FTA undertakes a new selection process every year. Under TEA-21, Job Access grants are subject to the terms and conditions applicable to recipients of urbanized area formula grants, as well as other terms and conditions established by DOT. After selecting projects for funding, FTA requires the applicants to provide assurances and documentation of compliance with these standard grant requirements, such as those concerning drug and alcohol testing, federal procurement standards, and state and regional transportation planning. TEA-21 authorized up to $750 million for the program from fiscal year 1999 through fiscal year 2003. It also required DOT to allocate 60 percent of the program’s funds each year to projects in urban areas with populations of at least 200,000; 20 percent of the funds to projects in urban areas with populations of less than 200,000; and 20 percent of the funds to projects in nonurban areas. Job Access grantees are required to provide at least 50 percent matching funds from other sources, including other federal funds available for transportation services—for example, funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. In response to funding designations contained in the conference reports accompanying DOT’s appropriations acts for fiscal years 2000 and 2001, FTA changed its selection process and adopted a two-track process for the selection of Job Access projects. Specifically, FTA adopted a noncompetitive process for the entities designated in the conference reports or applicants selected by those entities. FTA set aside funding for the designated entities and selected them without scoring and ranking their applications—that is, comparing them to those submitted by other applicants. FTA continued to implement its existing competitive process for other applicants. In fiscal years 2000 and 2001, FTA selected 199 projects for grants totaling $125 million on the basis of their designations in conference reports, rather than on the basis of its competitive review. According to FTA officials, the agency had determined that these projects met the program’s basic requirements and its selection criteria for competitively awarded grants. These 199 projects comprised about 61 percent of the 327 projects selected for grants during those 2 years and about 71 percent of the $175 million that was made available for the program during those 2 years. The Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2000 provided $75 million for the Job Access program, and the conference report accompanying the appropriations act designated a total of $49.6 million in specified amounts for grants to identified states, localities, and other organizations. FTA’s March 2000 request for project proposals provided detailed information to prospective grantees, including requirements for eligibility and guidelines for preparing grant applications. It also set forth selection processes for entities identified in the conference report and other applicants, stating that Congress had allocated $49.6 million for specific states and localities and that the remaining $25.4 million, along with about $4 million in unobligated fiscal year 1999 funds, was available for competitive award. FTA instructed entities identified in the conference report, or applicants selected by those entities, to submit applications responding to the same program selection criteria, including conformity with program requirements, as applicants for competitive awards. In addition, it advised applicants for “competitive grants” that—as in 1999—it would evaluate and score eligible applications according to four factors: (1) the degree of local coordination exhibited when a project was designed, (2) the demonstrated need for additional transportation services, (3) the extent to which proposed services would meet the need, and (4) the ability of an applicant to obtain resources to continue a project without grant funds. The notice indicated that, along with such factors as the time frame for implementation and the geographic distribution of project funding, these award criteria would provide the basis for project selections. The Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2001 provided $100 million for the Job Access program, and the accompanying conference report designated about $75 million for identified states, localities, and other organizations. As in 2000, FTA proposed to allocate amounts to entities identified in the conference report for projects meeting basic program requirements, stating that it would “honor those allocated projects that meet the statutory intent of the program.” However, it did not solicit new proposals for competitive award; rather, it decided to make remaining selections from among proposals submitted in fiscal year 2000 that were not funded or only partially funded due to funding limitations in that year. According to FTA, applicants for projects designated in the conference reports were notified by letter from the FTA regional administrators, as well as through its published notices, and instructed to submit project proposals addressing the criteria used for competitive awards, as well as standard FTA grant requirements. FTA officials noted that only those applications meeting the basic eligibility criteria for the Job Access program were awarded grants, explaining that FTA’s practice is to work with entities identified in the conference reports and include them in the program consistent with the underlying statutory requirements. During fiscal years 2000 and 2001, FTA’s two-track process for the selection of Job Access grantees decreased opportunities to fund projects that could have been identified as meritorious through the competitive evaluation process. Also, some projects selected in fiscal year 1999 were not selected for funding in fiscal years 2000 or 2001. As a result, according to grantee officials, some of these projects needed to reduce their services or ceased to operate. In response to TEA-21, FTA designed a competitive process consistent with the factors identified in the statute to help ensure that the projects selected for funding would improve the access of low-income individuals to employment and employment-related services through coordinated efforts of transportation providers, human service agencies, and others. In fiscal year 1999, FTA allocated all of the program funds—$75 million—for projects that it had competitively selected by evaluating, scoring, and ranking them against each other. However, for fiscal years 2000 and 2001, FTA allocated $125 million out of the $175 million available to entities identified in the conference reports, or applicants selected by those entities, and only $50 million to competitively selected entities that were not identified in the conference reports. According to the Coordinator of the Job Access program and other program officials, as a result of funding projects designated in the conference reports, many other worthy projects could not be funded. In fiscal year 2001, FTA did not solicit new proposals. Instead, it selected projects from among project proposals submitted for fiscal year 2000 that, according to FTA, were “meritorious” but had not been funded or had been only partially funded because of funding limitations. This change foreclosed opportunities for FTA to consider projects in fiscal year 2001 that may have been more promising than those actually selected in that year. In addition, FTA decreased the minimally acceptable score for project selection from 76.5 ranking points to 54.5 points. As a result, in fiscal year 2001, FTA selected some projects that it had evaluated and ranked in fiscal year 1999 or 2000 but had not found suitable for award in those years. According to FTA program officials and grantees, the decrease in funding for competitively selected projects during fiscal years 2000 and 2001 meant that about one-fifth of the fiscal year 1999 Job Access projects did not receive continued funding. To explore the impact of the reduction in funding available for competitive grants, we sent a questionnaire to 186 fiscal year 1999 grantees. About 83 percent of these grantees—or 155— responded to our questionnaire. These respondents generally indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with the Job Access program. Eighty- five percent said that they were satisfied with how the Job Access program has enabled their organization to help people get to work. However, 19 percent of the respondents—or 30 of them—faced reduced or discontinued funding during fiscal years 2000 and 2001. Furthermore, eight grantees reported that funding interruptions caused them to decrease the scope of service of their projects. For example, the Chesapeake Bay Agency on Aging (Urbanna, VA) reported that funding disruptions, accompanied by an inability to secure funding from alternative sources, resulted in some route cancellations and cutbacks in the number of riders served and the lengths of some routes. The Chesapeake Bay Agency on Aging and the Richmond (VA) Transit Authority stated that these service disruptions caused a loss of credibility with their clientele and cost some passengers their jobs.