Sneak Preview: COVID-19 Grants Oversight Is a Key DOJ Challenge
(The following was excerpted from a recent Thompson Grants 360 article.) As past audits have shown that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not always effectively overseen DOJ grant recipients, monitoring efforts are now even more complex as the agency aims to properly manage the influx of federal funds it awarded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG) report listing the agency’s key management and performance challenges for 2020.
Two of the nine top challenges listed in the OIG report are the agency’s planning and response to the global pandemic, and the importance of ensuring financial accountability over grants and contracts. In federal fiscal year (FY) 2019, DOJ awarded more than $4.9 billion in grants and some $8.5 billion in contracts. The passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) (Pub. L. 116-136) earlier this year provided an additional $1 billion in funding to DOJ to address the COVID-19 pandemic, of which $850 million is being administered by its Office of Justice Programs (OJP), its main award-making agency. “Oversight of all contracts and grants awarded to ensure financial accountability and mitigate the risks of fraud or misuse of [these] funds is an ongoing challenge,” the report states. DOJ “faces an added challenge in connection with the CARES Act awards because of the urgent need to have made the awards promptly.”
The report covering top management explains that in light of OIG’s concerns about potential fraud and abuse related to CARES Act funding, OIG sent a memo in May to DOJ procurement executives when it became aware of instances in which DOJ components may have been provided substandard or mislabeled personal protective equipment. Further, OIG notes in the report that recipients of OJP’s Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding (CESF) awards will be operating under “unprecedented circumstances, including reductions in administrative staff that may weaken internal control systems.”
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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