The region's mass transit agency, already confronting challenges this year with route cuts and fare increases, now faces a temporary cutoff of some federal funds because of concerns over its internal accounting practices.
The Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation received a letter last month from the U.S. Federal Transit Administration suspending PART's access to certain federal grant revenues until PART resolves the accounting concerns. The concerns were raised in a recent audit of PART's financial procedures conducted on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration.
"Because of the seriousness of these material weaknesses in the review, FTA has suspended PART's drawdown privileges. ... Once the findings are corrected, FTA may lift the drawdown suspension," states the letter to PART from the regional administrative office of the Federal Transit Administration in Atlanta.
PART Executive Director Brent McKinney said that the mass transit agency is addressing the audit recommendations and expects to have the suspension lifted in the next couple of weeks. The suspension of access to Federal Transit Administration money hasn't affected PART's day-to-day operations and bus service, McKinney said.
The reason is that the suspension of Federal Transit Administration money concerns access to revenues for capital projects, and PART hasn't needed to tap into capital revenues since January or February.
"We don't get any operating funds. So the only funds we'd be drawing down would be capital, such as buying land, building park-and-ride lots or buying a bus," McKinney said.
PART has addressed the issues raised by the Federal Transit Administration, and "we're in good shape," McKinney said. He said the suspension of access to Federal Transit Administration funding should be lifted in "a couple of weeks. There's absolutely nothing in the report that we either haven't already addressed or won't address in the next few days."
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