Objective

To determine the extent of implementation of the recommendation included in our initial audit report, Monitoring and Administration of Public Protection Grant Programs (2019-S-21).

About the Program

The Division’s mission is to enhance public safety by providing resources and services that inform decision making and improve the quality of the criminal justice system. To that end, the Division administers 11 State and federal grant programs aimed at crime prevention and control. Among these public protection grant programs are the Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) program and the SNUG (“guns” spelled backward) program. GIVE is a crime-fighting program designed to assist the 17 counties that account for more than 80% of violent crime – such as aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, and robbery – in the State, excluding New York City. In previous years, some GIVE contracts included confidential funds, which are those paid by law enforcement agencies – generally in cash – to confidential informants for tips and information. To help establish accountability over the funds and promote their appropriate use, Division contract language required that grantees that received confidential funds have a record of the signatures of the funds recipient, the officer authorizing the funds, and the approving officer.

SNUG is a violence-reduction initiative that uses street outreach to address the issues causing gun violence and reduce gun-related incidents. The Division awards SNUG contracts to not-for-profit organizations that use community outreach and involve residents, businesses, and community-based organizations in implementing strategies to reduce and prevent shootings and gun-related deaths. For the contract year ending June 30, 2022, the Division awarded $13.3 million in GIVE contracts and $4.9 million in SNUG contracts.

The objective of our initial audit, issued April 24, 2020, was to determine whether the Division was adequately administering and monitoring selected public protection grant programs to ensure expenses were supported and allowable under the related contracts. The audit found that the Division had adequately administered and monitored the GIVE and SNUG grant program contracts we reviewed to ensure that the related grant expenses were supported and allowable under the contracts. We identified one exception related to documentation of the authorization or receipt of confidential funds and issued one recommendation to address this area.

Key Finding

Since our initial audit, the Division reduced and ultimately eliminated confidential funds from its GIVE contract awards. As such, the recommendation from our initial audit report is not applicable.