U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Audit Report

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Grants to the City of Phoenix Police Department

Arizona

GR-90-99-003

OCTOBER 1998

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of four grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the City of Phoenix Police Department (PPD), Arizona. The PPD received a grant of $3,900,000 to hire or rehire 52 sworn officers under the Accelerated Hiring, Education, and Deployment Program (AHEAD) and $15,000,000 to hire 200 sworn officers under the Universal Hiring Program (UHP). In addition, the PPD received $1,615,689 to redeploy 99.4 sworn officer full-time equivalents (FTEs) into community policing under the Making Officer Redeployment Effective program (MORE 95) and $476,703 to redeploy 18.9 sworn officer FTEs to community policing under the MORE 96 program. The purpose of the additional officers under the grant program is to enhance community policing efforts.

In brief, the most significant findings were:

• The PPD was unable to document the redeployment of 99.4 sworn officer FTEs to community policing under the MORE 95 grant resulting in $917,881 of unsupported costs. If the PPD cannot provide documentation regarding the redeployment of 99.4 sworn officer FTEs, then the remaining grant award balance ($697,808) should be deobligated and the funds put to better use.

• The PPD generally was not in compliance with grant reporting requirements. The PPD failed to submit the 1996 and 1997 Annual Department Reports. The PPD also failed to submit the 1996 Progress Report for the MORE 95 grant. The Department Initial Report overstated the number of sworn officer positions in the PPD. In addition, the PPD did not submit one Financial Status Report (FSR) for the MORE 95 grant and two FSRs for the MORE 96 grant. Four FSRs for the MORE 95 grant and five FSRs for the AHEAD/UHP grants were submitted late.

These items are discussed in detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. Our scope and methodology appear in Appendix II.

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