The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report to bring light to the allocation of federal funds for specific community projects.
These funds are being allocated upon request of Congress representatives, according to the report for fiscal year 2022.
“While agencies often have discretion over how they award funds, Congress has directed them to distribute these funds to designated recipients,” the report said. “We're tracking the funds to help ensure transparency. The Department of Commerce's FY22 appropriations included $247.5 million for 107 of these projects. This report looks at when Commerce plans to distribute the funds and how it plans to ensure they're spent properly.”
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 allocated $247.5 million to the Department of Commerce for 107 projects at the request of members of Congress, according to the report. The statute has specific provisions that allocate a certain recipient a certain amount of money to use for a particular project. In the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively, these provisions are referred to as Congressionally Directed Spending and Community Project Funding.
The GAO report covers the intended purposes for these monies, the recipients to whom they were allocated and the anticipated access dates for beneficiaries, according to the report.
