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Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Grants
to the Albuquerque Police Department
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Report No. GR-80-03-001
December 2002
Office of the Inspector General


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of grants awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department (Albuquerque PD). The purpose of the grants was to enhance community policing. The Albuquerque PD was awarded a total of $12,005,703 to hire 93 additional police officers and redeploy the equivalent of 74 existing full?time police officers from administrative duties to community policing.

We reviewed the Albuquerque PD's compliance with all seven essential grant conditions, and we found weaknesses in all seven of the areas we tested: budgeting for local officer positions, hiring of additional officers, local match requirements, reimbursement requests, redeployment tracking, retention of officer positions, and enhancement of community policing activities. As a result of the deficiencies identified below, we question $4,152,447 in grant funds received and recommend an additional $3,468,218 be put to better use.1

These items are discussed in detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. Our audit objectives, scope, and methodology appear in Appendix I.


Footnotes

  1. The Inspector General Act of 1988 contains our reporting requirements for questioned costs and funds to better use. However, not all findings are dollar-related. See Appendix III for a breakdown of our dollar-related findings and for definitions of questioned costs and funds to better use.