Last year, as one part of the mission of Common Sense Alliance, I prepared a report to the Colorado Transportation Legislation Review Committee, a group made up of state legislators charged with overseeing state transportation projects. The general perspective of the report was that the state needed to take action to protect its citizens from the complete collapse of federal oversight of transportation funding. Despite that rather gloomy assessment the report also noted that “efforts to secure remediation of this problem at the federal level will continue”, and we are now back to work on that approach.
Problems with the way the Department of Transportation (DOT) is doing its job can be reported to their Office of Inspector General (OIG). Beyond that, the federal government has now set up an Integrity Committee, to whom complaints can be addressed regarding problems with the way the OIG is doing its job.
Last week, I sent the letter below to the Integrity Committee, along with a complaint* regarding both the DOT and the OIG.
Any federal elected official or candidate might find the link below to be especially interesting, as it recounts the practical and real world methods used by federal employees to avoid taking responsibility to fix problems brought to their attention. I have not attempted to contact any elected officials or candidates, as I do not have any particular connection to any of them that might cause them to take notice. If you do have the ear of a federal elected official or candidate, please feel free to pass this email along.
* http://www.entrancesolution.com/Integrity%20Complaint.htm
Dear Integrity Committee,
The enclosed complaint is being sent to you at the suggestion of Valerie T. Blyther, Investigative Research Analyst for FraudNET at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
A central aspect of the problem being reported is the manner in which it was handled by staff of the Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, and that appears to be your specific area of responsibility.
However, the full authority of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity & Efficiency would be better suited to respond to the broad scope of deficiencies in the oversight of federal transportation funding which is detailed in this complaint. The mission and purpose of the Council to “address integrity, economy, and effectiveness issues that transcend individual Government agencies”, and “continually identify, review, and discuss areas of weakness and vulnerability in Federal programs and operations with respect to fraud, waste, and abuse” could have been written in reaction to the situation I am reporting.
The inevitable buck passing that occurs as a result of the bureaucratic compartmentalization of responsibility and authority has been a major problem that formation of the Council is clearly intended to overcome. The more pernicious failure of accountability that I encountered has been the consistent practice by nearly every federal official contacted to avoid acknowledging or discussing any of the information with which they are presented – apparently in order to evade any responsibility to act on that information.
If the intent of the architects of your agency was to make the Integrity Committee the enforcer of personal accountability by federal employees, the power to do so will need to be extended far beyond the various IG offices.
It is somewhat surprising that your intake method does not start with the Council, who then makes a determination regarding whether to pass the information on to the Integrity Committee. Regardless, I trust the Integrity Committee is perfectly capable of forwarding this request to the full Council for action that will “transcend individual Government agencies”.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Jeffrey Evans