U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Audit Report
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
Grants to the Fauquier County, Virginia Sheriff's Department
GR-30-98-009
December 1998
Executive Summary
The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of three grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the Fauquier County, Virginia Sheriffs Office (the Sheriffs Office). The Sheriffs Office received grants of: $70,865 to hire 1 officer under the Funding Accelerated for Smaller Towns (FAST) program; $399,755 to hire 5 officers under the Universal Hiring Program (UHP); and $134,055 under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program to hire 2 civilians and to purchase equipment and technology. The purpose of the additional officers, civilians, equipment and technology is to enhance community policing efforts.
Our audit determined that:
- The Fauquier County Board of Supervisors did not authorize 3 additional positions required for the supplemental UHP grant. Therefore, we are recommending that $251,995 of the UHP grant be deobligated and put to better use.
- The Sheriffs Office does not have a system to adequately track redeployment of officers to community policing as required by the MORE grant. This deficiency results in questioned cost of $70,756 and funds to better use of $58,531.
- The cost of two computers was erroneously included in each of two MORE renewal grants. Therefore, we are recommending that $4,768 in federal funds be deobligated and put to better use.
- Two MORE grant positions were filled by Sheriffs Office employees whose prior positions were not backfilled for over 3 months. The period of time that the two prior positions were vacant is unallocable to the 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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