Will there be transparency of OJP fair grant competition disclosed online?

Written by Biloxi

President Obama will be signing next week into law H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act which passed by the Senate on Thursday. On Friday, I saw this piece of information on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's website, The Gavel, for three proposed federal regulations to protect taxpayers and consumers. One of those proposed federal regulations is this:

TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING: The establishment of a free, public, website containing full disclosure of all Federal contract award information.

This may be good news for the Office of Justice Program since that division along with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention have been plagued with problems with the improving transparency of scores and rankings of grants awarded the applicants. However, it is unclear whether Ms. Pelosi's proposed federal regulation will include a full transparency of applicants' scores and rankings of grant awards.

As you may recall in 2008, former OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores was investigated for ignoring his staff's recommendations of scores and rankings of the applicants and misappropriated millions of tax payer dollars of grant money to individual with ties to the Bush Administration for political and religious agenda. Former OJJDP Program Manager and whistleblower Scott B. Peterson exposed his boss' crimes which led to a Congressional hearing. In April 2009, the Office of Inspector General found that Mr. Flores violated ehics rules according to Inspector General's report. Mr. Flores was no civil nor criminal charges. Mr. Flores is currently President of Hampton Road Strategies, LLC., a consulting and law firm. Mr. Peterson is the President and Founder of  Global Youth Justice Inc., that "promote the global expansion of quality juvenile justice programs commonly referred to as youth court, teen court, peer court, student court, youth peer jury, and youth peer panel."

Currently, there are other public websites such USAspending.gov and Office of Management of Budget [OMB ]Watch site, Fedspending.org that provide transparency to the public of all entities or organizations receiving federal funds.

Also,  the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, signed by President Bush in 2006
required disclosure to the public of all organizations receiving federal funds in (FY) 2007. When the
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is signed into law by President Obama, we can only hope the scores and rankings of competitors of the grant money will be fully disclosed to the public online. More importantly, I would like to see a full disclosure of results of the grant money usages by the awardees. As we demand Wall Street reform and consumer protection,  transparency of fair grant competition in the Office of Justice Program is a must.