Mr. Robert E. Prangley
Prangley & Company
745 Crevelings Lane
Cincinnati, Ohio 45226-1757

Dear Mr. Prangley:

Thank you for your letter inquiring about applicability of the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) drug and alcohol testing rules to subcontractors. In your letter, you note that the Southeast Alabama Regional Planning and Development Commission receives both Section 5307 (formerly Section 9) and Section 5311 (formerly Section 18) funds. In serving the transit needs of both the City of Dothan and Houston County, Alabama, the Commission combines these funds into one account. You ask if the maintenance personnel who work on the Commission's vehicles are subject to the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) drug and alcohol testing regulations because the Commission is a recipient of Section 5307 funds.

You write that the Commission, through a "piggyback" arrangement with the Houston County government, contracts out its vehicle maintenance to maintenance vendors. In a subsequent telephone conversation with a member of my staff, you clarified that statement, indicating that the Commission contracts with the County to perform the maintenance work; the county, in turn, contracts all its maintenance work, including the Commission's, to the four contractors. The relationship, then, of the maintenance vendors to the Commission is that of subcontractors.

The FTA has determined that a recipient's subcontractors are not subject to the regulations. A recipient's contractor is solely responsible to the recipient for the maintenance work performed, and in our view the intent of the rules was to cover only that contractor. The rules apply to a recipient's contractor performing maintenance work on revenue service vehicles or equipment, but do not apply to any subcontractors providing such services for that contractor. We emphasize, however, that the rules would apply if the subcontractors are used to perform maintenance work solely for the purpose of circumventing the FTA's drug and alcohol testing rules.

If you have further questions, please contact Michael Connelly of my staff at (202) 366-4011.Very truly yours, (Signed)

Patrick W. Reilly
Chief Counsel