Department of Justice (DOJ) Acting Inspector General William M. Blier announced today the release of a report on the Office on Violence Against Women’s (OVW) pandemic-era grant administration and lessons learned from grant monitoring and oversight. The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the OVW can apply lessons learned to improve its administration of grant programs.
The OIG’s findings included the following:
- OVW Needs to Evaluate its Monitoring Processes. On average during fiscal years 2019 through 2022, OVW performed monitoring below its established standard of 10 percent of its active grant recipients, even after adjusting its monitoring goals to address pandemic-related challenges. The continued adjustments to its monitoring goals, both before and during the pandemic, lessens confidence in OVW’s monitoring process.
- OVW Needs to Review its Approval Practices for No-Cost Grant Extensions. For the five programs reviewed, OVW approved no-cost grant extensions for 468 grant recipients. A total of 91 grant recipients across the five programs reviewed received two or more no-cost extension approvals. In addition, extended recipients received new awards prior to the end of the extended period. This practice increases the number of active grants to monitor and exacerbates OVW’s monitoring challenges.
- OVW Needs to Improve its Guidance for Approving No-Cost Grant Extensions. OVW does not have written policies related to the approval of multiple no-cost grant extensions outside of internal procedures used to guide staff in the management of its assigned awards.
The DOJ OIG made two recommendations to improve OVW management of grant awards. OVW agreed with both recommendations.
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