摘要: |
Currently, all 50 States manage the Federal 5310 and 5311 programs on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration. Since the Federal authorizing legislation for these programs is very broad, there is a wide variation among States regarding agency eligibility for these funds. For example, some States limit eligibility to formally established rural public transportation authorities. Other States permit selected private, non-profit agencies to qualify for this funding. Given the wide variation in individual State eligibility for State 5310 and 5311 funds, it would be helpful to know the current eligibility requirements of each State for these programs. This information would be useful to States to either help reinforce their current eligibility policy, or help justify potential change in their current program eligibility requirements. The objectives of this research were to document each State’s current eligibility requirements for the Section 5310 and 5311 programs with an emphasis on identifying, (1) which States limit eligibility to rural public transportation authorities, (2) which States permit private non-profit agencies to participate in the program, (3) which States allow public non-transportation agencies to apply for these funds; and, (4) which other major categories of program eligibility are utilized by one or more States. Potential research tasks included: (a) identifying which States currently allow rural public transportation authorities to qualify for these programs, the number of current approved grantees and the share of total current Section 5310 and 5311 funding provided to these agencies; (b) identifying which States currently allow private non-profit agencies to qualify for these programs, the number of approved current grantees, and the share of total current Section 5310 and 5311 funding provided by these agencies; (c) identifying which States currently allow public non-transportation agencies to qualify for these programs, the number of current approved grantees, and the share of total current Section 5310 and 5311 funding provided to these agencies; (d) identifying any other categories of agencies that States currently determine as being eligible for these programs, the number of current approved grantees in each of these categories, and the share of total Section 5310 and 5311 funding provided to the agencies in each of these categories; and (e) summarizing the above information in a table, or matrix to facilitate a comparative review of all States to determine both how many States, and which States, currently permit the various forenamed categories of agencies to participate in their respective Section 5310 and 5311 programs, as well as, the relative degree of participation of each different category in each State’s programs. |