Return to the USDOJ/OIG Home Page

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Grants
to the Horry County, South Carolina Police Department

GR-40-02-003
November, 2001
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 Horry County, South Carolina Police Department (HCPD). The purpose of the grants is to enhance community policing. The HCPD was awarded a total of $1,448,657 to hire 17 new police officers and redeploy the equivalent of 4.8 existing full-time police officers through overtime to community policing.

We found the HCPD to be in material non-compliance with COPS’ grant requirements. We reviewed the HCPD’s compliance with seven essential grant conditions and except for budgeting for local officers, we found weaknesses in each area we tested: hiring of additional officers, local match requirements, reimbursement requests, retention of officer positions, redeployment, and community policing enhancement. As a result of the deficiencies identified below, we question $464,867 in grant funds received and recommend an additional $424,246 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.