U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Audit Report

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Grants to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina Police Department

Grant Nos.

95-CL-WX-0008, 97-UL-WX-0027, and 97-CL-WX-0057

GR-40-98-029

September 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, Police Department (CMPD). The CMPD received a $3,000,000 grant to hire or rehire 40 sworn officers under the Universal Hiring Program (UHP). The CMPD also received a $4,242,333 grant to redeploy 205.2 officer full-time equivalents (FTE) and an additional $4,120,920 grant to redeploy 176.5 officer FTEs under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program.

In brief, the CMPD violated some of the grant conditions. Specifically, the CMPD:

• Claimed salaries and fringe benefits for ten civilian employees transferred within the department to allow redeployment of officers. COPS guidelines state that civilians should be hired from outside the department unless prior authorization is obtained from COPS; the CMPD did not obtain such authorization. We question $310,925 in associated salaries and fringe benefits as unallowable.

• Did not implement a one-for-one redeployment of officers for civilian employees transferred in to replace them, as required by the grant. Accordingly, we question $332,659 in associated salaries and fringe benefits as unallowable.

• Could not provide time sheets to support $36,477 in salaries and fringe benefits under the UHP grant.

• Could not provide time sheets to support $116,145 in salaries and fringe benefits under the first MORE grant.

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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