U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES

GRANTS TO THE ST. LOUIS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

Award Number 95CCWX0165

Audit Report Number GR-50-98-017

June 25, 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (Police Department). The Police Department received a $1,723,728 grant to hire or rehire 23 additional sworn police officers under the Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deployment (AHEAD) program, and two supplemental awards totalling $3,675,000 under the Universal Hiring Program (UHP) to hire or rehire 49 additional sworn police officers. In addition, it received an $881,085 award under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program to re-deploy 78.3 full time equivalent police officers. This audit focused on the AHEAD grant, as no funds had not been requested nor expended under the UHP and the MORE grants.

Generally, the Police Department properly managed the COPS AHEAD grant; however, our audit revealed that:

- The Police Department requested and received $892 over the amount allowed under the grant. This was due to a data entry error in the payroll records in which the salary of one officer was entered twice.

- The Officer Progress Reports and the second Annual Department Report were not submitted to COPS. In addition, most Financial Status Reports to the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) were either late or not filed.

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