Thursday, June 19, 2008

Waxman: Committee to Reset Hearing on Grantmaking Practices at the DOJ.



The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing titled, “Examining Grantmaking Practices at the Department of Justice” on Thursday, June 19, 2008, in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

The hearing will examine how the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded grants in fiscal year 2007.

The following witness is expected to testify:

o Mr. J. Robert Flores, Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

More from Youth Today:

The committee, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), has asked the Justice Department for documents relating to all grant-making by OJJDP for fiscal 2007. Among the documents the committee requested:

• A list of all applicants for discretionary grants, the proposed funding amount, whether the application was subject to an external peer review, the applicant's evaluation scores and the amount funded, if any.
• All documents related to the award of discretionary grants in 2007, including applications, records and notes from bidders' technical evaluations, agency decision memoranda, and communications within OJJDP and between OJJDP officials and "any outside entity."
• All communications from Flores "relating to all grants considered for awards."
• Justice Department and OJJDP policies governing the grant competition and awards process.

Also, Flores is going to deny that he didn’t play favorites. More from Youth Today:
The head of the federal juvenile justice office plans to tell Congress on Thursday that allegations that he showed favoritism in awarding grants are nothing more than unjustified attacks by people who oppose Bush administration policies or who "are biased against the wealthy."

In a draft of his testimony obtained by Youth Today, J. Robert Flores says he awarded grants according to standard practice, that his choices were approved by his supervisors and that media reports about the grants process are misleading.

Youth Today will be updating the hearing on the website. I will be following the hearing.

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