Yolo County Probation Department and CALCASA Hit For Misuse of Grant Money

According to a letter dated November 24 from Inspector General Laura Chick, money that first became available in the mid-1990s through the Violence Against Women Act, and was increased through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  (ARRA) which awarded the California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA) a total of $13.3 million, were misused.

Now Inspector General Chick, charged with auditing federal stimulus money in California, has found serious problems in the use of hundreds of thousands in federal money.

Writes the Inspector General in a letter to Governor Schwarzenegger, “One grant CalEMA has awarded [to CALCASA] provides critical training for rape crisis centers statewide to increase comprehensive services to all victims of sexual assault, especially unserved and underserved populations. Unfortunately, the sole recipient contracted to conduct this work, having spent a good deal of the $300,000 it was awarded, has woefully failed to achieve the promised results. Of the monies expended so far, nearly half were not used properly.”

“Significant objectives of the grant, including conducting training programs and creating and distributing valuable information, have not been achieved,” she continues.

She also faulted the Yolo County Probation Department, “Another grant was awarded to a county to create a small specialized unit to manage probationers convicted of sexual assault.”

“One of the key elements of the program was to contact victims to refer them to services and especially to notify them when their perpetrators were released from prison. My review finds that with only four months left in the grant period, not even a third of the promised contacts with victims were made,” Inspector General Chick wrote.

Yolo County’s chief probation officer Marjorie Rist acknowledged, in an October 12 response letter, problems with attempting to connect victims of crime with resources.

“Yolo County Probation Department does not dispute that we will not make the contacts as anticipated in the grant application,” Ms. Rist responded. “What the department found was that making contacts with victims proved far more difficult than anticipated.”

According to the Inspector General, the Yolo County Probation Department was to receive ARRA funds of around $259,000 for a period from October 1, 2009 to October 31, 2010.  Of that money,  $188,550, or roughly 70%, has been spent.

The Inspector General found, “An objective of the Probation Specialized Units Recovery Act Program is contact with victims to inform them about probationer’s status, terms and conditions of probation, the role of the probation officer, examples of probation violations, and to refer victims to appropriate services. The Department included, as a grant objective, the service goal of 300 contacts with victims by the end of the grant term, October 31, 2010. The Department will not meet this objective, having recorded only 81 contacts with victims as of June 30, 2010.

“Further, the Department did not maintain a victim contact log which records required information about victim contacts. As a result, the IG could not determine if the Department initiated contact with victims within 14 days of the probationer’s release or assignment to the unit, as specified in the Department’s grant proposal.”

“Failure to meet program objectives may result in disallowed cost, withholding of future grant funds or denial of subsequent grant awards,” the report continues.

At this point, the Inspector General recommends that the Probation Department work with CalEMA to determine the corrective action for the problems.

While CALCASA is a Sacramento-based non-profit, it has extensive ties with the Yolo County DA’s Office and has  recommended the awarding of numerous grants to Yolo County over the last few years.  For instance in 2009, Yolo County received a STOP Sexual Predator grant for $290,180. Only two places in California received this grant. CALCASA recommends funding.

In 2009, Yolo County received a STOP Women’s Vertical Prosecution Grant for $259,075. This is a federal grant forwarded by Cal EMA. CALCASA makes recommendations on funding STOP grants.

CALCASA is funded, in part, with STOP VAW (Violence Against Women) funds and coordinates closely with criminal justice agencies that are funded through this fund and Byrne Funds (Yolo County DA has received several large Byrne Funds).

CALCASA was hit for not meeting three of four objectives.  The first objective which was not met was, “Provide a minimum of six training programs to CalEMA-funded rape crisis centers on provision of services to underserved and unserved communities.”

However, the Inspector General reports there has only been one training program to date, and the planning for the training programs was to be completed by April of 2010, but “planning for five training programs did not begin until October 2010.”

The third objective was not met either.  They were supposed to, “Revise, develop, and distribute a minimum of five publications and materials to enhance services for sexual assault survivors with an emphasis on underserved and unserved communities.”

However, they have only begun work on one publication.  In fact, “CALCASA has only recently secured contracts for consultants to revise and update the remaining four publications. CalEMA requires that CALCASA submit all publications for review 60 days prior to the release date. With less than 60 days left of the grant term, it appears that release dates of these publications will occur after the end of the grant term.”

Finally, they failed to “Complete final review/approval and distribution process of the revised Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) Manual.”  However, “After the start of this review, CalEMA approved a Grant Award Modification Request to remove this grant objective. We note that there was no reduction in grant funds to reflect the removal of this objective. CALCASA claimed and was reimbursed for $3,725 in expenditure of consultants work on this objective.”

Perhaps most serious is the improper expenditures of $48,532.  Writes the Inspector General, “Despite the insignificant activities taken by CALCASA to meet the objectives of the grant, expenditures of $110,713 were claimed and reimbursed by CaIEMA, through August 31, 2010.”

A full 44 percent of the costs claimed were improper.

Given the reliance on grants by the Yolo County DA’s Office, it would be of great interest to determine if funds were properly used by that office.  A similar audit would be interesting.  If the DA’s Office has nothing to hide, then there should be no problem here.

—David M. Greenwald reporting