U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Los Alamos County Police Department

Los Alamos, New Mexico

GR-80-98-039

September 22, 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of the grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the Los Alamos County Police Department, Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Los Alamos County Police Department received a grant of $75,000 to hire or rehire one sworn police officer under the Funding Accelerated for Smaller Towns (FAST) program, and $290,323 to redeploy

14.4 full-time equivalents (FTEs) under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective (MORE) program. The purpose of the additional officer is to enhance community policing efforts.

Budgeted funds for police services and the number of officers budgeted remained at or above the level of FY 1994, the year before the FAST grant was initiated. Funds provided under the grant were used to enhance the Los Alamos County Police Department's community policing efforts. The number of officers performing community policing activities increased by the number of officers funded under the grant.

However, we found the following weaknesses with regard to meeting the grant conditions:

- Overtime costs totaling $5,750 were improperly included in the total program costs as reported in the most recent Financial Status Reports for the FAST grant.

- The number of FTEs required under the MORE grant had not been redeployed.

- Several COPS monitoring reports and OJP Financial Status Reports were either not submitted timely or never submitted.

- Nine of the 14 required Financial Status Reports for the FAST grant were submitted, six of which were late. In addition, three of the required Financial Status Reports for the MORE grant were not submitted, and six reports were not timely submitted.

- Total program outlays were overstated by $5,177 for the FAST grant and understated by $19,570 for the MORE grant. In addition, the Federal share reported for both the FAST and MORE grant were inconsistent with requests for reimbursement.

#####