Not content to let the House have all the action, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Friday launched a probe of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s (OJJDP) alleged political grantmaking, Youth Today reported Friday.
The D.C.-based newspaper’s ongoing coverage of the story, in which OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores has had to answer for several suspicious moves in awarding precious juvenile justice funds — including that he helped politically connected money seekers over more qualified applicants and even allowed proposal submissions to arrive after the deadline — prompted the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to call Flores before its panel 10 days ago.
More after the jump.
In prepared remarks, Flores – a Bush administration appointee who’s helmed the office since April 2002 – says, according to the paper, that "he awarded grants according to standard practice, that his choices were approved by his supervisors and that media reports about the grants process are misleading."
Some senators aren’t buying it. A June 27 letter, signed by Leahy and four other senators — Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) — and citing reports in Youth Today, said Flores awarded grants to organizations that scored lower than dozens of applicants that he rejected. The letter also mentions reports in The Washington Post about investigations of Flores by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
According to the paper, the June 27 letter "says that reports in Youth Today ‘have noted that the bids of some youth service organizations with long records of success have recently been rejected in favor of organizations with far shorter track records.’ It cites The World Golf Foundation and the Best Friends Foundation, two politically connected organizations that won controversial National Juvenile Justice Program grants last year."
The letter also asks for:
*All communications to or from OJJDP Administrator J. Robert Flores relating to any grant proposals or organizations considered for awards in fiscal 2007 and 2008.
*All correspondence between OJJDP and organizations that bid unsuccessfully for discretionary grant awards for fiscal 2007 and 2008 discussing the rejection of their grant proposals.
*A list of applicants for discretionary grants awarded by OJJDP for fiscal 2007 and 2008, including the requested funding amount, the process by which the application was reviewed, whether there was any external peer review, the applicant's technical evaluation scores, and the amounts awarded to grant winners.
*All documents relating to the technical review of applicants for discretionary grants awarded by OJJDP for fiscal 2007 and 2008, including all records and notes from the technical evaluation, the official decision memoranda, and any other communications relating to the evaluation or decision-making process used to award the grants.
*A summary of all investigations or non-routine audits concerning Flores or other OJJDP officials who participated in the grant evaluation and decision-making process.
*All OJJDP policies and procedures governing the evaluation of grant applications and the awarding of grants.
Nonprofits and public agencies rely on these crime prevention funds to help kids. When a well-connected political appointee seems to feel that he can subvert the process for his own ends, the entire mechanism for awarding government grants is called into question. And that hurts everyone — the youths who rely on the services, the nonprofits who provide them, and the American taxpayer who foots the bill.