Summary: GAO reviewed financial management weaknesses in the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) civil penalty program.
GAO found that: (1) inadequate recordkeeping made it difficult for the FRA Office of the Chief Counsel (OCC) to determine which railroads responded to notifications of safety violations and potential civil penalty assessments; (2) the FRA Office of Financial Services (OFS) did not establish accounts receivable for millions of dollars in civil penalty payments it received because OCC staff did not notify it of amounts due; (3) OCC did not process and OFS did not timely deposit some payments, resulting in a loss of interest revenue; (4) OCC did not consistently enforce provisions for charging interest and administrative costs for overdue civil penalty payments; (5) OCC failure to timely settle railroad safety violation cases or collect civil penalties resulted in increased federal government borrowing; (6) internal weaknesses in the financial management of the penalty program undermined FRA compliance with federal standards for settlement, collection, accounting, and recordkeeping; and (7) FRA did not comply with its own internal operating procedures and policies.
