Streamlining of Administrative Activities and Federal Financial Assistance Functions in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Report No. 03-27
August 2003
Office of the Inspector General

Office of Justice Programs

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) was established in 1984 by the Justice Assistance Act to develop the nation's capacity to prevent and control crime, improve the criminal and juvenile justice systems, increase knowledge about crime and related issues, and assist crime victims. OJP's initial organization included several previous entities from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), which had been created by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. The LEAA was the first comprehensive State program designed to provide funding to States to reduce crime. The OJP carryover organizations from LEAA included the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Drug Courts Program Office.

Each year, OJP receives appropriations through the annual Commerce-Justice-State (CJS) Appropriations Bill. As shown in the chart below, from FY 1984 through FY 2003, OJP received about $34 billion to carry out its mission.

OJP Budget by FY
(Billions)

Source: OJP's Enacted Budgets

As of the end of FY 2002, OJP reported that it had awarded more than 68,700 grants, totaling more than $31 billion, for a wide variety of programs. For a description of the major grant programs administered by OJP, see Appendix 2. The charts below detail the number of grants and funds awarded by OJP from FY 1987 through FY 2002.⁹

Source: OJP

Source: OJP

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

On September 13, 1994, President Clinton signed into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (commonly known as the "1994 Crime Act"). The 1994 Crime Act authorized $8.8 billion over six years, the purpose of which was primarily to fund grants for adding community oriented policing officers to the nation's streets and advancing community policing nationwide. To implement the program, the Attorney General created a new program office within the Department of Justice known as the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS).

Each year, the COPS Office receives appropriations through the annual CJS Appropriations Bill. As shown in the chart below, from FY 1995 through FY 2003, the COPS Office received about $11.3 billion to carry out its mission.

COPS Office Budget by FY
(Billions)

Source: COPS's Enacted Budgets

As of the end of FY 2002, the COPS Office reported that it had awarded more than 35,600 community policing grants, totaling more than $8 billion, to deploy more than 116,700 additional officers to the nations streets. For a description of the community policing grants awarded by the COPS Office, see Appendix 3. The charts below detail the number of grants awarded, funds awarded, and number of officers reported as funded from the inception of the COPS program through FY 2002.¹⁰

Source for Above Graphs: COPS

Prior Audits

Since October 1994, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has issued more than 450 audit reports on recipients of grants awarded by either the COPS Office or OJP. The OIG has also issued reports on the management and administration of the COPS program.

• In April 1999, the OIG issued an audit report summarizing the results of 149 audits of COPS grantees that we performed during FYs 1997-1998 (See Police Hiring and Redeployment Grants: Summary of Audit Findings and Recommendations, October 1996 - September 1998 (No. 99-14)). The 149 COPS grantees had received about $511 million in grant funds. The summary report concluded that based on the 149 individual COPS grant audits, significant numbers of jurisdictions audited were: overestimating salaries and benefits or including unallowable costs in reimbursement requests, (2) using State funds to supplant local funds, (3) not making a good-faith effort to fill locally-funded sworn officer positions, (4) not submitting or submitting late status reports to the COPS Office and OJP, and (5) not establishing systems to track the redeployment of officers into community policing. The summary report also concluded that some jurisdictions might have difficulty retaining COPS-funded officer positions with local funds at the conclusion of the grants. Since September 1998, we have continued to audit COPS grantees and have continued to identify the same findings reported in the summary report. The COPS Office strongly disagreed with our reliance on individual grantee audit reports and our interpretation of these findings.
• In July 1999, the OIG issued an audit report that reviewed the COPS Office's and OJP's administration of the $8.8 billion community-policing program. (See Management and Administration of the Community Oriented Policing Services Grant Program (No. 99-21)). This audit evaluated the: 1) COPS Office's ability to meet President Clinton's goal to put 100,000 additional police officers on the street by FY 2000, 2) COPS Office's and OJP's monitoring of grantees, and 3) quality of guidance provided to grantees to assist them in implementing essential grant requirements. The audit concluded that the COPS grants would not result in 100,000 additional officers on the streets by the end of FY 2000. This audit also determined that many grantees did not submit the required program monitoring and financial reports and that the COPS Office's on-site monitoring reviews did not consistently cover all grant conditions. Moreover, the audit concluded that the COPS Office and OJP did not adequately follow up on deficiencies found in on-site reviews to ensure that the deficiencies were corrected.

9. OJP was not able to provide data on grants it awarded from FY 1984 through FY 1986.
10. The FY 1994 totals are for the Police Hiring Supplement grants awarded by OJP but administered by the COPS Office beginning in FY 1994. The FY 1995 totals include data for the Phase I COPS grants awarded by OJP for the COPS Office.