U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General At a Glance 11-R-0222 May 9, 2011 Catalyst for Improving the Environment Why We Did This Review The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General, conducts site visits of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) clean water and drinking water projects. We selected the Town of Buckeye, Arizona, for review. Background The town is constructing a 1.5-million-gallon-per-day expansion of its wastewater treatment facility. The project I is funded by a $12,000,000 Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan from the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona. The loan included $6,372,285 in Recovery Act funds. For further information, contact our Office of Congressional, Public Affairs and Management at (202)566-2391. The full report is at: www.epa.qov/oiq/reports/2011/ 20110509-11-R-0222.pdf American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Site Visit of the Wastewater Treatment Facility Expansion, Town of Buckeye, Arizona What We Found We conducted an unannounced site visit of the wastewater treatment facility expansion in the Town of Buckeye, Arizona, in October 2010. As part of our site visit, we toured the project, interviewed town representatives and contractor personnel, and reviewed documentation related to Recovery Act requirements. We did not identify any compliance issues with Buy American, wage rate, contract procurement, or funding requirements. However, we found that the town was not in compliance with reporting requirements for jobs created or retained for the 9-month period ended September 30, 2010. The town used incorrect and/or incomplete work-hour data to calculate jobs created or retained for quarterly reports covering the 6-month period ended June 30, 2010, and did not submit the report for the quarter ended September 30, 2010. What We Recommend We recommend that the Region 9 Regional Administrator require the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona to direct the town to obtain, to the maximum extent possible, complete information on jobs created or retained with Recovery Act funding for the primary contractor and subcontractors; direct the town to correct the number of jobs created or retained for the quarterly reports; obtain the corrections for the reported number of jobs; maintain the corrected documentation in administrative records; and submit corrections to the federal government. Region 9, the Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona, and the town agreed with the recommendations. ------- |