Mr. John Nardini
Resident Transit Manager
St. Joseph Transit
1601 Buchanan Avenue
St. Joseph, Missouri 64501

Dear Mr. Nardini:

Thank you for your January 28, 1999, e-mail in which you seek clarification of the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) recently published final rule on " ‘Maintenance’ Under Definition of Safety-Sensitive Functions in Drug and Alcohol Rules,"

64 Fed. Reg. 425, No. 2 (January 5, 1999). You ask if a grantee that regularly uses a private business to perform overhaul and rebuilding maintenance work must comply with the rule, even where there is no written contract between the business and the grantee.

The rule does not apply when "overhaul/rebuilding work is done on an ad hoc or one-time basis, where there is no long-term contract between the grantee and its contractors,"

64 Fed. Reg. 426, because subjecting irregularly used contractors to the rule would be unduly burdensome. However, where a grantee regularly, albeit infrequently, uses the same contractor or contractors to perform overhaul/rebuilding work, the rule applies.

A written contract between a grantee and its contractor is not required for the rule to apply. Rather, whether the rule applies will be determined by the course of conduct between the parties. In other words, if the grantee always goes to the same contractor for overhaul/rebuilding work, and the contractor, based on its past relationship with the grantee, reasonably expects to perform the grantee’s overhaul/rebuilding work, the rule applies, even absent a written contract.

If you have additional questions, please contact Michael Connelly of my staff at (202) 366-4011.