One year later, OJP still facing grant management problems

Justice Department Stresses Fair Competition In Anticrime Grants
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Obama administration is much more transparent than was the Bush administration about disclosing where the billions of dollars on grants to criminal justice agencies are going, reports National Public Radio. Some previous grant recipients are unhappy about the open process. Laurie Robinson, Assistant Attorney General for Justice Programs, tells NPR, "I've really laid down the law about the importance of competing grants so that we ensure that people who are interested in applying for grants from the Department of Justice all have an equal chance."

Robinson tells applicants who were used to getting grants year after year almost automatically that "it's a new era." Discussing new priorities in the Obama administration, Robinson cited $100 million allocated for prisoner re-entry programs and an emphasis on anticrime programs that have scientifically-validated results.

National Public Radio

Not surprising. In OIG Gleen Fine's report in November 2009, he outlined the top management challenges in the Justice Department last year and grant managment in the Office of Justice Program division is still a problem:

DOJ Top Management Challenges

P. 17:

7. Grant Management: The OIG has identified grant management as a significant challenge for the Department since inception of this list, not only in terms of making timely awards of billions of dollars of grant funds but also in maintaining proper oversight over grantees to ensure the funds are used as intended. This challenge is particularly acute for the Department in 2009 because in addition to managing over $3 billion in grant funding from its regular fiscal year appropriation, the same grant administrators also must oversee disbursement and oversight of $4 billion in grants under the Recovery Act. The challenges the Department faces in ensuring the integrity of Recovery Act funds are described in a separate challenge, while this section focuses on the continuing challenge the Department faces in ensuring the overall efficiency and integrity of its grant programs.
Read more on the OIG report. Click here.

Oh, and some bit a good news that was reported back in July 2008. And I don't know if this amendment was rescinded. Let's hope not:

The Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), is taking measures to ensure that DOJ will no longer have the "discretion" to hand out grants to their favorite recipients counter to peer-review recommendations. Rep. Obey has offered an amendment requiring that:

The Attorney General, and the head of any entity in the Department of Justice, in making grants in the exercise of authority under any discretionary grant program shall--

(1) conduct a peer review process, and
(2) adhere strictly to the peer review rankings made.

More from Project of Government Oversight website. Click here.

OIG report: Procedures used of the OJJDP to award discretionary grants in FY2007

Pic above is a memo dated March 20, 2009 from Acting Attorney General Laurie O Robinson that was requested to implement a policy for AAG for OJP (Office of Justice Program) and OJJDP Administrator to maintain records supporting their decisions and approvals in the grant-decision process.

Written by Biloxi

This report [which was overlooked in the media] by the Inspector General Glenn Fine gives in-depth of how he concluded the former OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores violated the ethics rules on grant-making. Fine examined many interviews and a number of grants to conclude the findings on Flores and the improper procedures with the OJJDP. Click here to read report. Here is one example of from Fine's report:

Results in Brief
Congress provided OJJDP nearly $330 million for FY 2007 operations
and awards, with about $113 million reserved for grants to juvenile justice
initiatives and mentoring programs.

In April 2007, Congress approved DOJ’s spend plan, which allocated OJJDP funds to broadly defined programs. The spend plan did not specify how OJP or OJJDPwould choose award recipients.

In February and March 2007, Administrator Flores recommended placing nearly all of the $113 million reserved for juvenile justice and mentoring programs up for competition – a proposal that Assistant Attorney General Schofield ultimately rejected.

Schofield told us that she decided to use invitational awards to ensure that continuing and deserving programs would receive funds. Schofield further asserted that she and her staff only gave
invitational awards to organizations that had demonstrated a strong record of performance and results.

Once OJP made these invitational awards, less than $40 million of the $113 million remained for OJJDP to award via six competitive solicitation announcements. OJJDP waited until after Congress approved OJP’s spend plan in April 2007 before drafting many of its competitive juvenile justice and mentoring solicitations.

Consequently, OJJDP did not announce several competitive grant programs until May 2007, which was more than halfway through the fiscal year. The late program announcements reduced the
amount of time organizations had to apply for grant funds. In fact, solicitations initially remained open for only an average of 17 days.

We believe that this abbreviated application period did not provide sufficient
time for many prospective applicants to complete all the steps necessary to
submit a grant application.

And Fine's conclusion:

During our interviews, Flores reiterated the reasons
for his award recommendations, but told us he did not maintain any record
to support his decisions.

In our view, Administrator Flores and Assistant Attorney General
Schofield did not adequately document the reasons for their respective
award recommendations and decisions.

So neither Flores or his boss maintain any record or documentations on grant-making decisions and recommendations. It is hard to believe of no documentations from an Administrator of 6 years. But, of course Flores' agenda as OJJDP Administrator was to spread then President Bush's religious and political agenda, the Faith-Based Initiative.

Fine pointed out from his report: Executive Order 13279. In the report, Executive Order 13279 (2002) directed heads of other federal agencies that
provide services to children and others in need to encourage the participation of faith-based and community organizations in receiving federal financial assistance (E.O. 13279). Flores' nomination of OJJDP Administrator was sent to the Senate on May 23, 2001. Flores was confirmed on April 12, 2002. Bush issued Executive Order 13279 on December 12, 2002, nine months after Flores was confirmed.

Here was an excerpt:

Section 1. Definitions. For purposes of this order:

(a) ‘‘Federal financial assistance’’ means assistance that non-Federal entities
receive or administer in the form of grants, contracts, loans, loan guarantees,
property, cooperative agreements, food commodities, direct appropriations,
or other assistance, but does not include a tax credit, deduction, or exemption.

(viii) services for the prevention and treatment of juvenile delinquency
and substance abuse, services for the prevention of crime and the provision
of assistance to the victims and the families of criminal offenders, and
services related to intervention in, and prevention of, domestic violence;

The pic above is from Fine's report of examining the award recipients from the National Juvenile Justice Programs and Mentoring recipients. Two of the award recipients that I have looked close at are Best Friends Foundation and National Organization of Concerned Black Men.

According to Sexuality Information and Education Council in U.S. website:

Community-based organizations in Washington, DC received $793,538 in federal funds for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in Fiscal Year of 2008. There were Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) and Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) grantees.
There was one CBAE grantee in Washington, DC: Best Friends Foundation. and one AFLA grantee in Washington, DC: National Organization of Concerned Black Men.

Best Friends Foundation received $550,000. The length of the grant is for five years:2008–2013.National Organization of Concerned Black Men received $243,538. The length of the grant was for five years: 2004–2009.National Organization of Concerned Black Men provides out-of-school enrichment and prevention programs to African American children from disadvantaged communities throughout the country. And here was Flores gave Best Friends' special treatment:

In the summer of 2008, controversy erupted over the Best Friends Foundation’s grant award of $1.1 million from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice.10 During the grant review, the Foundation’s grant was ranked 53rd out of 104 total applications. It was noted during the review that the organization refused to participate in Mathematica’s congressionally-mandated study to determine the effectiveness of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

Flores created a new grant category to ensure the Foundation received an award despite the grant’s poor review. This new category was titled, “Utilizing school based outreach efforts directed at preventing high-risk activity (out-of-wedlock pregnancy)”according to Sexuality Information and Education Council in U.S. website.

Notice that Best Friends was ranked 53 and National Organization of Concerned Black Men was ranked 19. NOCBM received less than half of grant money than Best Friends. Yet both were Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage grantees

Inspector General Fine made a recommendations to OJP to implement policies grant decision makers, AAG, and OJJDP Administrator maintain records to support their decisions and approvals of the awards and gave OJP goals to implement such action:

Pg. 82

Resolved. We recommended that OJP implement a policy to ensure
that award decision makers, including the Assistant Attorney General
for OJP and the OJJDP Administrator, maintain records supporting their
selections or approvals of OJJDP invitational awards. OJP agreed and
stated that it has implemented the requirements of the Associate
Attorney General’s May 2008 memorandum requiring that, beginning
in FY 2008, documentation be maintained to support all discretionary
funding recommendations and decisions. As part of its response, OJP
provided a memorandum, dated March 10, 2009, from OJP’s Acting
Assistant Attorney General to OJP bureaus and program offices
directing them to continue documenting all discretionary funding
recommendations and decisions as set forth in the May 2008
memorandum. Further, by September 30, 2009, OJJDP will develop
and implement an internal guidance manual that will include
procedures for supporting and maintaining evidence of its selections or
approval of award decisions. This recommendation can be closed
when OJJDP provides us its FY 2008 and 2009 discretionary funding
recommendations and decisions explaining the award selections made,
the reasons for the selections, and the policy consideration on which
the selections were based, as well as its updated guidance manual.

It is my hope that OJP will heed to the Inspector General's recommendations, have a plan of action, and move forward to restore the faith and integrity lost in the OJJDP in the past six years.

Office of Justice Programs in DOJ study dispels myths about girls' delinquency, prevention programs needed

This is from the October 2008 OJJDP Girls Study Group Series bulletin.


The Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) today released a research bulletin, Charting the Way to Delinquency Prevention for Girls, which reports that despite the rise in female juvenile crime, violence among female youth has not increased.

Following a sharp increase in arrests among female juveniles in the 1990s, OJJDP convened the Girls Study Group (GSG) to gain a better understanding of girls' delinquency and guide policy toward female juvenile offenders. While the majority of delinquent offenders are boys, little research exists on female juvenile delinquency. This first bulletin, part of a forthcoming series, summarizes findings from a comprehensive research project into girls' delinquent behavior.

"The Office of Justice Programs created the Girls' Study Group to fully understand why an increasing number of girls are entering the juvenile justice system and to better understand how to prevent and intervene in girls' delinquency," said Jeffrey L. Sedgwick, Assistant Attorney General for OJP.

Key findings of the OJJDP-sponsored Girls Study Group:

-- Girls are not more violent now than in previous years.

One of the factors discussed in the bulletin is the unintended impact of relatively
new mandatory or pro-arrest policies put in place to protect victims of
domestic violence.

"By convening the Girls' Study Group, we made understanding girls involvement in delinquency a priority," said J. Robert Flores, Administrator of OJJDP. "We will use the data collected from this study to assist government and community leaders in responding to the needs of girls."

Read on.

This is interesting that OJP find a rise in female youth crime but not an increase in female youth violence. This was the exact findings for female youth in the May 2008 bulletin:

From a July 2008 posting on Justice League:

In May 2008 publication, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) had published "Violence by Teenage Girls: Trends and Context." The first in a series of publications from OJJDP's Girls Study Group, the bulletin assessed trends of juvenile arrest rates for violent crimes.

Here's an excerpt of conclusion on page 15:

Available evidence based on arrest, victimization, and self-report data suggests that although girls are currently arrested more for simple assaults than previously, the actual incidence of their being seriously violent has not changed much over the last two decades. This suggests that increases in arrests may be attributable more to changes in enforcement policies than to changes in girls' behavior. Juvenile female involvement in violence has not increased relative to juvenile male violence. There is no burgeoning national crisis of increasing serious violence among adolescent girls.

Now are we supposed to believe from the OJJDP and OJP that the female youth violence hadn't changed or increased since May 2008? Maybe that is why these organizations were rejected by J. Robert Flores in the grant decision process.

From Youth Today:

Rejected

Justice Research and Statistics Association: Wanted to continue running the Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center, which it has operated for several years under competitive and noncompetitive OJJDP grants, says Executive Director Joan C. Weiss. The center’s website says its goal is “to enhance the capacity of states and local program personnel to conduct and/or participate in the evaluation of juvenile justice programs or juvenile justice system(s).”

The center’s main activity is JJEC Online, a Web tool to help “juvenile justice practitioners, policymakers and state agency administrators with the assessment and evaluation of programs and initiatives,” the website says.

National Partnership for Juvenile Services: To create a National Center for Juvenile Detention and Corrections, which would focus on developing research, training and technical assistance products for juvenile corrections facilities, says CEO Earl Dunlap. He said those products would “focus on most of the hot issues of the day,” such as disproportionate minority confinement.

National Council on Crime and Delinquency: One bid was to create a national training and technical assistance center to help serve court-involved girls, said council President Barry Krisberg. A second bid, he said, “focused on how to improve family-based prevention strategies for immigrant kids.”

Finally, from Flores' testimony with the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 5, 2007, Flores told the committee that he was releasing a series of bulletins on the Girls Study Group findings in fiscal year of 2008 to identify issues facing youth. Flores said:

Already, we see that the increase in arrest rates for girls may be explained in large measure by changes in policing that resulted from changing community demands. Whatever the cause, the number of girls entering the juvenile justice system is increasing, and states and localities need guidance on how best to handle the increase. We are currently in the process of putting together a series of bulletins on the Girls Study Group findings. We expect results to be released in Fiscal Year 2008.

Through efforts such as the Girls Study Group, the juvenile justice field is making great strides in increasing its knowledge of the issues facing youth, identifying what programs work, and assuring that practitioners receive the information they need.

Now that the bulletins provided by the Girls Study Group had been released this year, I see no improvement from the OJJDP and OJP departments since the scandal in the OJJDP nor do I see a willingness to aid the female youth and juveniles with programs. Flores said that they "made understanding girls involvement in delinquency a priority." If it was a priority, why did Flores rejected the organization, National Council on Crime and Delinquency, for a grant?

Finally,

Look at what is happening in a city in California:

Measure OO on the Nov. 4 ballot in Oakland would require the City Council to increase by $16.4 million a year the amount it sets aside each year for after-school programs.

"Our commitment to protect young people should be there whether the city is flush or the economy is in trouble," said Olis Simmons, executive director of Youth UpRising, a teen center in East Oakland that receives $175,000 a year in Measure K funds.

"The children served by these programs are the poorest in Oakland. They are counting on the mayor and the City Council to protect them."

The measure supports anti-gang, anti-violence and drug-prevention programs in the city. Proponents say student test scores have improved and juvenile arrests have declined since Measure K was enacted.

POGO sent recommendations for good government reforms for Presidential transition teams.

Project On Government Oversight (POGO) sent to the transitions teams for Senators John McCain and Barack Obama in seeking to make the federal government more effective, accountable, open, and honest unlike the last 8 years under the Bush Administration.

POGO:
If elected, your administration will need to make several reforms. The implementation of the following recommendations will help put the country on the right track to a more effective, accountable, open, and honest government – one that is truly responsive to the needs of its citizens.

PDF Version of Transition Paper

One of recommendations that POGO's request is a transparency in contracting and grant making process to the public:

Problem:The federal contracting and grant-making system is opaque. The government lacks rules to ensure that the contracting and grant-making process is open to the public.

POGO recommends:To restore public faith in federal spending, agencies should announce and promptly publish online all new and existing contracts, grants, and task and delivery orders above $100,000, as well as requests for proposals and solicitations, contract or grant data, award decisions and justifications, audits, and other related reports.

Sounds like the message is sent loud and clear to the OJJDP and OJP. I would suggest that there should be an annual report of all award decisions, audits, and other related reports to be sent to Government Accountability Office and Congress to assure public faith in federal spending.

Has the cronyism been cleaned up in the Office of Justice Program?

Written by Biloxi
October 20, 2008

Last month, I had written an article about the House subcommittee's hearing on the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) where now Assistant Attorney General for that department, Jeffrey Sedgwick, testified to the subcommittee that there will be a transparency in the grant decision making process. I have continued to follow the on-going investigation in the Office of Juvenile Justice Department of Prevention (OJJDP) under OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores. There hasn't been any indication to when the House committee and the Senate committee will re-start the probing in this manner. I went back to look at the Oversight Committee hearing on Mr. Flores to former Assistant Attorney General Regina Schofield.

Ms. Schofield said that Mr. Flores “misrepresented the rating scores” of bidders for the National Juvenile Justice Programs last year and hid the fact that most of his choices received lower scores than many of the proposals that he rejected. She couldn’t give a defense for Mr. .Flores since Ms. Schofield approved the grants. The reason is why did Ms. Schofield throw Mr. Flores under the bus? Well, after researching Ms. Schofield's bio and career in the Bush Administration, she, too, is no stranger to cronyism.

Ms. Schofield was confirmed as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs on June 8, 2005. Prior to that position, she was the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and White House Liaison at the Department of Health and Human Services.Schofield, who doesn't have a law degree, was confirmed by Senate. Why did President Bush picked a non-attorney to be his new Attorney General? Senator Patrick Leahy had some reservation of Bush's nominee.

Senator Leahy said in the Senate confirmation hearing on Schofield:

"I am interested to learn how Ms. Schofield will approach this job. I will be interested in learning her experience with law enforcement. She comes to DOJ from HHS and a brief stint at the United States Postal Service. Her lack of justice experience stands in stark contrast to the relevant prior experience of both Laurie O. Robinson, President’s Clinton’s AAG for OJP, who had been Director of the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Criminal Justice Section for 14 years at the time of her nomination, and Deborah Daniels, President’s Bush’s first AAG for OJP, who was an experienced prosecutor with prior DOJ experience at the time of her nomination."

One of the cronyism that Schofield was connected to was the Bush Administration's politicization of the Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona. Mr. Carmona accused the Administration of blocking him from speaking out on certain public health issues such as "embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, emergency contraception, and abstinence-only education." According to Carmona's testimony before a House committee in July 2007, he routinely battled with Bush appointees who try to suppress his reports on global health and other politically sensitive topics in order to achieve political goals. Schofield was the White House Liaison at the Department of Health and Human Services at that time. In a Sept. 25, 2002 e-mail to Ms. Schofield, William Turenne, a former Eli Lilly executive who served as a high-level consultant at Department of Health Services, described Mr. Carmona as "wandering" and "not focused on the president's/secretary's agenda."

Another cronyism that was connected to Schofield was the internal Justice Department audit revealing extravagant travel and banquet expenses: [Read more]. In September 14, 2007, an internal Justice Department audit revealed that the department had sent employees to 10 conferences over the last two years, with unusually high expenses, including "$4.04 per serving of Swedish meatballs at a dinner." Ms. Schofield's department approved 6 of the 10 conferences. What was interesting was that Ms. Schofield announced her resignation on September 13, 2007 -- just one day prior to the audit release.

This is just another example of incompetent employees put into a position for a political agenda. But, it leaves a lot to desire to Ms. Schofield's truthfulness to her story on J. Robert Flores when she herself got her hands caught in the cookie jar of graft. Mr. Flores said in his testimony:

"In 2007, unlike prior years, OJJDP had a discretionary funding line. Decisions on what to fund and how to do it are shared between the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), who has final authority on grants, and the OJJDP Administrator who, based on experience and expertise, makes recommendations within his discretion on what to fund as defined by the JJDPA and Department rules."

So, who is telling the truth here? Better yet, why are both faulting the other? Certainly, Ms. Schofeld didn't want any focus in Mr. Flores' probe on her as the former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs and the internal DOJ probe into excessive business expenses probe in 2007.

The Office of Justice Program is simply putting a Band-Aid on the entire division. Flores was never reprimanded for his grant decision making process in the OJJDP probe from the OJP nor the Attorney General. Still, the broken system within the Juvenile Justice program is broken. There is still no word from the Inspector General's investigation into Mr. Flores illegal hiring of a former Honduran General Hector Rene Fonseca. Mr. Fonseca, a non US citizen in 2004 when hired, did not meet the residence requirement of living in the US. Mr. Flores. Fonseca was paid $450 a day as a contractor to work on faith-based and gang issues. Someone needs to put a bug into the Inspector General's ear on the status of this probe.

Former OJJDP Administrator to House Judiciary Subcommittee: OJJDP needs improvement.

Written by Biloxi
September 22, 2008

The House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on crime, terrorism, and homeland security held an oversight hearing on the Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs Oversight last week. Center for Juvenile Justice Reform Director Shay Bilchik testified as an expert witness on the subject of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Mr. Bilchik was the former OJJDP Administrator for the Justice Department 1994 until 2000. Mr.Bilchik was replaced with J. Robert Flores who is the current OJJDP Administrator and is currently under investigation for questionable grant decision making process for religious and political agenda for the Bush Administration.

Some key points that I picked up from Mr. Bilchik's testimony posted on the Center of Juvenile Reform website. Mr. Bilchik focused on six main areas of improvement that OJJDP should pursue: "1) realigning the agency’s focus to the JJDPA [Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act ] and its core protections, 2) focusing on assistance to States, 3) restoring the comprehensive nature of the agency, 4) engaging the juvenile justice field, 5) increasing transparency, and 6) developing the juvenile justice workforce."

[More]…

Read on.