In fiscal year 2000, BJA awarded 99 Byrne discretionary grants worth about $69 million. In addition, grant managers are to review grantee program and financial progress reports. Byrne and VAWO grant files did not always contain monitoring plans, and grant managers were not consistently documenting their monitoring activities, according to the monitoring plans that we reviewed. Each grant may contain one or more individual grant awards,and for each award, OJP requires that grant managers prepare a monitoring plan containing information on, among other things, who will conduct the monitoring, how it will be done, and when and what type of monitoring activities and reports are planned. Our review of documentation on the awards in 46 Byrne grant files and 84 VAWO grant files showed that an estimated 29 percent of the Byrne awards and about 11 percent of the VAWO awards did not contain a grant manager’s monitoring plan. BJA and VAWO Are Not Positioned to Systematically Determine Staff Compliance With Monitoring Requirements and Assess Overall Performance

BJA and VAWO are not positioned to systematically determine grant managers’ compliance with monitoring requirements because documentation about monitoring activities is not readily available. Instead, they rely on staff meetings and informal discussions with staff to oversee grant monitoring activities and identify potential grantee problems. OJP has begun to work with its bureaus and offices, such as BJA and VAWO, to address these problems, but it is too early to tell whether its efforts will be enough to resolve many of the issues that we and others, including OJP, have identified. Appendix I: Size and Growth of OJP, BJA, and VAWO Budgets and BJA and VAWO Discretionary Grant Programs

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and its bureaus and offices, including the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO), experienced budget growth in the latter half of the 1990s, following the passage of the 1994 Crime Act. OJP formula grants are awarded directly to state governments, which then make subawards to state and local unites of government. A discussion of the development of VAWO’s management information system can be found on page 21 of the report. 12.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed grant monitoring and evaluation efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Justice Program (OJP). This report discusses the monitoring of discretionary grants awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Byrne Program and the Violence Against Women Office (VAWO) within OJP.

What GAO Found

In constant 2000 dollars, Byrne and VAWO discretionary grants grew about 85 percent--from $105 million to $194 million between fiscal years 1997 and 2000. These funds were awarded to state and local governments, either on a competitive basis or pursuant to legislation allocating funds through congressional earmarks. BJA and VAWO, together with OJP's Office of the Comptroller, are responsible for monitoring these grants to ensure they are implemented as intended, are responsive to grant goals and objectives, and comply with statutory regulations and policy guidelines. OJP's monitoring requirements include the development of monitoring plans that articulate who will conduct monitoring, the manner in which it will be done, and when and what type of monitoring activities are planned. Grant managers are to maintain documentation in grant files using such techniques as written reports of on-site reviews and telephone interview write-ups. GAO's review of 46 Byrne and 84 VAWO discretionary grants indicated that only 29 percent of Byrne and 11 percent of VAWO award files contained monitoring plans. In addition, for awards covering the most recent 12-month period, grant managers were not consistently documenting their monitoring activities. BJA and VAWO cannot systematically oversee grant managers' compliance with monitoring requirements because documentation is not readily available. Both BJA and VAWO rely on staff meetings and discussions to identify grant problems or monitoring issues, and neither have management information systems to compile and analyze data on monitoring activities. OJP has begun to work with its bureaus and offices to address grant management problems, but it is too early to tell whether OJP's efforts will be effective.