U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE RECOGNIZED
FOR INNOVATIVE GRANTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Washington, DC ? The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP) accepted an E-Gov 2003 Explorer Award today honoring innovation in e-government for its Grants Management System (GMS). GMS is a fully-automated, paperless system from beginning to end -- from application to award closeout -- which allows OJP to process and manage funding awards to state and local entities more quickly, easily and accurately. The Explorer Award was presented at the fifth annual awards ceremony at the E-Gov 2003 Conference and Exposition in the new Washington Convention Center.

"OJP?s Grants Management System has dramatically simplified and improved the grant application, award, and notification process by reducing taxpayer costs, saving time and eliminating excessive paperwork," said Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels. "GMS has allowed our grantees and staff to allocate more time to fulfilling their missions and less to administrative tasks."

GMS began as a concept in 1997 and evolved into a working reality when the system became fully operational in 2002. OJP leadership tapped into the expertise and input of numerous OJP staff who work in all aspects of OJP?s grant processes to make GMS a success. GMS supports the grant management activities of OJP?s bureaus and program offices. Currently, it processes over 15,000 applications and 6,000 awards each year, totaling over $6 billion.

As part of the President?s Management Agenda to continue improving the delivery of government services to citizens, GMS has become a more streamlined, Web-based tool that makes processing grants easier and faster. The system provides automated support throughout the grant life cycle for OJP staff, grant applicants and grantees, including applicant registration, application submission and review, award approval and distribution, payment, monitoring, closeout, and decision support. By using GMS, the award process, which took an average of three months to complete under the old paper-based system, now averages three weeks to complete.

"With GMS, information that OJP staff used to spend hours searching for is now available at their fingertips," said David Zeppieri, OJP Chief Information Officer. "The staff?s ability to sort, research and modify grant information on their desktops means that the days of sifting through thousands of paper files are a thing of the past."

OJP staff will be at the conference exhibition June 11-12 to showcase the winning Grants Management System in the Government Solutions Center.

The Office of Justice Programs provides federal leadership in developing the nation?s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP is headed by an Assistant Attorney General and comprises 5 component bureaus and 2 offices: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office for Victims of Crime, as well as the Executive Office for Weed and Seed, and the Office of the Police Corps and Law Enforcement Education. Information about OJP programs, publications, and conferences is available on the OJP Web site, www.ojp.usdoj.gov.

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