U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Audit Report

Office of Community Oriented Policing Services

Grants to the

McKeesport, Pennsylvania Police Department

GR-70-98-015

August 28, 1998

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), to the McKeesport Police Department (McKeesport). McKeesport was awarded a total of $973,664 in COPS grants to hire 7 new full-time and 10 new part-time sworn police officers, and to redeploy 4.6 full-time-equivalent (FTE) sworn police officers to community policing.

McKeesport violated some grant conditions.

• McKeesport did not develop plans to document the redeployment of officer FTEs to community policing resulting from its MORE 95 and MORE 96 grants. The MORE redeployment condition requires grantees to develop a redeployment plan within 60 days of accepting the grant. Until McKeesport develops a redeployment plan for the 3.6 FTEs granted under MORE 95, we consider the $56,454 received as reimbursement under the grant as questioned costs. McKeesport must also develop a redeployment plan for 1 FTE under MORE 96. Until it develops such a plan, we consider $7,970 as questioned costs and $37,726 as funds to better use.
  
  
• About 35 percent, or $19,634, of the reimbursement McKeesport received under MORE 95 was for expenditures on items not included in the approved grant budget. We would have questioned this $19,634 if we had not already questioned the total reimbursement because McKeesport did not develop a redeployment plan.
  
  
• McKeesport spent about $5,300 in federal funds and local matching funds for salary in excess of the amount approved in the FAST financial clearance memorandum and received $3,973 as reimbursement. As a result, we question the $3,973 McKeesport received as reimbursement.

These items are discussed in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. The Scope and Methodology we used to perform the audit, appear in Appendix II.

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