NCJ Number
249111
Date Published
July 2015
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This is the report of the U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General's audit of the National Institute of Justice's (NIJ's) grant awards to Erie County, NY, under NIJ's DNA Backlog Reduction Program.
Abstract
The audit's objective was to determine whether reimbursements claimed for costs under the two NIJ awards were allowable, supported, and in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, guidelines, and the terms and conditions of the awards. Although Erie County generally met the terms and conditions of the awards, there were three deficiencies in internal controls. First, the accounting methodology did not allow for the separate tracking of grant-funded expenditures to individual awards with the precision and accuracy required by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) Financial Guide. Second, the project did not fully comply with property management requirements of the OJP Financial Guide. Third, there were no policies and procedures established to ensure full compliance with all required grant special conditions for each individual award. Three recommendation are presented for remedying these deficiencies. First, the county should implement policies and procedures for an accounting method that separately tracks award-funded obligations and expenditures attributed to each award. Second, the county should update its property management system to comply with OJP requirements that cover accountable property and equipment. Third, the county should implement and follow documented policies and procedures that ensure the routine monitoring of compliance with award special conditions, including equal employment opportunity. The county's and OJP's response to these recommendations are included in this report. 1 table and appended supplements