Economic Development Administration: Additional Collaboration with Other Agencies Could Reduce Risks Associated with Overlap

Filed 1h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: George Grantham Bain Collection · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A GAO report finds that 140 federal economic development programs spread across 13 agencies obligated roughly $60 billion in fiscal year 2024, with significant overlap. Of 29 non-EDA programs reviewed, all overlapped with at least one EDA program in activities, beneficiaries, or purpose, and 20 overlapped in all three.

The Economic Development Administration is legally required to coordinate with other agencies, but GAO found only five of the 29 overlapping programs reported collaborating with EDA in fiscal year 2024, and EDA does not verify applicants' self-reported funding from other agencies before awarding grants. EDA officials maintain their current approach satisfies the coordination mandate even though most collaboration efforts are inactive with no plans to resume.

GAO recommended EDA resume and improve interagency collaboration; EDA agreed with the recommendation.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An agency whose entire job description is coordinating economic development programs has let its coordination efforts go quiet and still insists it is meeting the requirement to coordinate. That is a bit like a crossing guard who stopped looking both ways but says the intersection is covered. Agreeing with a recommendation costs nothing; the $60 billion question is whether anybody actually picks the phone back up.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Krampus Workshop · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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