U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Audit Report

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Grant to the Maryland State Police

GR-30-98-003

December 1998

Executive Summary

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of the grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Policing Services (COPS), to the Maryland State Police (the State Police). The State Police received a grant of $1,726,161 to redeploy 204 full-time equivalents (FTEs) officers under the COPS Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program. The purpose of the redeployed officers is to enhance community policing.

The State Police violated the following grant conditions:

• Only $65,511 of the $198,130 reimbursements was adequately supported.

• We could not attest to the reasonableness, accuracy, or validity of the estimates of time savings of patrol and investigative personnel because the State Police had no analytical data or other documented support.

• The State Police did not plan for and utilize an interim system to identify and accumulate community policing activities.

• The State Police did not provide documentation to support the actual redeployment of officers. Therefore, the State Police did not demonstrate that it enhanced its community policing efforts using the funds provided under the COPS MORE grant. Thus, the total award amount of $1,726,161 is considered unsupported.

These items are discussed in the FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS section of the report. Our SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY appear in APPENDIX II.

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