FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 7, 2017
Update: DOJ OIG Audit of Crime Victims Fund Grant to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services Results in Repayment Totaling $452,464
Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today that the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) has returned $452,464 to the DOJ as a result of a DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) grant audit. The repayment represented the total amount of grant funds that the OIG questioned in its audit report.
The OIG’s February 2017 audit report assessed four sub‐grants totaling $553,386 from Cal OES to the Indian Child Welfare Consortium (ICWC) in Temecula, CA. The purpose of the sub‐grants was to facilitate the provision of therapeutic clinical services or culturally-centered services to Native American child abuse victims, and support services to non-offending family members. The funds awarded originated from the Crime Victims Fund, which serves as a major funding source for victim services throughout the country.
During the audit, the OIG found that ICWC’s accounting records were un‐auditable and contained significant deficiencies. We also identified other issues, including a conflict of interest between ICWC’s Executive Director and a contractor, who were married; contractor billings that contained irregularities and excessive billings; and ICWC expenses that lacked supporting documentation or were not properly authorized. Our audit also called into question the legitimacy of some of the services that ICWC had purportedly been provided to Native American child abuse victims and others. Based on these and other findings, the OIG questioned the entire $452,464 of grant funds that Cal OES had disbursed to ICWC under the sub‐grants.
According to the DOJ, the money that Cal OES repaid was deposited back into the Crime Victims Fund in fiscal year 2017.
The OIG’s February 2017 report is available on the OIG’s website at the following link: https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2017/g9017002.pdf.