Lack of Competitive Bidding and Performance Oversight in Subsidy Reporting

$10,000–$30,000 annually per operator (manual reporting labor, risk of subsidy reduction due to poor metrics, audit remediation); systemic loss of ~$80M–$150M across US from inability to optimize subsidized routes and justify funding • $10M-$18M annually (estimated 1.25-2.25% of $800M budget) from non-competitive fuel procurement where incumbent supplier charges premium rates without market pressure • $15,000–$45,000 annually per operator (delayed reimbursement float, manual labor cost, audit remediation); systemic loss of ~$120M–$200M across US operators from data quality issues in subsidy claims

Charter requests logged in email or phone calls; manual capacity reservation in shared Excel; no system to track which charters are subsidy-eligible; informal agreements with operators on pricing • Compliance reported via narrative summary; bid records scattered across departments; no centralized subsidy allocation audit trail; informal communication with subrecipients; compliance assumptions (not verified) • Excel spreadsheets manually matching ticket revenue and service costs to eligible vs. ineligible activities; WhatsApp groups coordinating with government liaisons; email chains for invoice reconciliation; paper records of which routes/services qualify for 5311 funding